Truth and Consequences

October 31, 2002

Writing about the lack of honesty from candidates on both sides of the political spectrum regarding Social Security in this year's campaigns, syndicated columnist Matthew Miller attempts to understand the tactics of vote-seeking politicians:

"It is easy to ridicule how both parties lie about Social Security, so let's go ahead and do that. But then let's do the harder thing, which is to empathize with why our leaders act that way. Democrats have rolled out their classic demagoguery, juiced up this year by the corporate scandals and plunging stock market. Republicans want to privatize Social Security, they say. A fun Democratic Party cartoon shows President Bush pushing an old lady off a cliff… But the truth is that the most any GOP plan (usually offered in tandem with centrist Democrats) seeks to do is give workers a chance to put 2 percent of today's 12 percent payroll tax into accounts they control. There are pros and cons to such a system (and Republicans have been dishonest about financing the expensive transition to it), but leaving grandma eating cat food in the street isn't among them."

The focus has become partisan attack politics, writes Miller: "How silly does it get? Democrats say Republicans already have voted to privatize Social Security because of a July 2001 vote. A Democrat at that time offered an amendment to a spending bill that would have barred the use of federal money to implement the recommendations of the president's Social Security commission. Every Republican and 20 Democrats voted against that ludicrous measure. It was a bogus setup designed to make 'credible' a campaign ad that would accuse Republicans of their usual evil intent."

He continues, "Leon Panetta, the former Democratic congressman and White House chief of staff, told me that both parties are consumed by such shenanigans. 'What they basically are doing is trying to set up these issue positions that can be used as political attack points,' Mr. Panetta said. 'It isn't about finding answers to the problems to run the country.'"

Miller concludes, "The premise is that it is impossible to tell voters in the context of a congressional campaign that such hard choices are inevitable, because people really don't pay attention or want to hear the truth…In other words, our politicians infantilize our campaigns because they have reason to believe voters are infantile. As always in a democracy, we get the demagoguery we deserve…The only thing that will change this dynamic is proof that voters are ready to elect candidates who tell the truth."

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