Following are excerpts from a recent LA Time column. I guess a columnist can say whatever they want, even lie and mislead and pitch the false narrative of whomever gets their ear.
I highlighted the inflammatory and misleading buzzwords in the column. My favorites are “ginning up” and “largely imaginary.”
At the end of this post you will find photos of the conclusions written by the first and last Social Security Trustees reports during the Obama Administration. Also included is the conclusion section from the 2020 Trustees report. I urge you to read the last paragraph in each, compare them and then see if they align with the LA column or the comments within from Nancy Altman.
Is there something bad about asking for an updated report on the status of the Trust? For more than ten years the Trustees have been urging lawmakers to address the growing fiscal problems of SS “in a timely way.” Just as long and much longer Social Security has been ignored … except for calls to provide higher benefits.
Headline LA Times July 28, 2020 Column: GOP slips an attack on Social Security into its coronavirus relief bill.
“The version (of coronavirus relief) unveiled Monday by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) incorporates a provision even more menacing for Social Security (and Medicare too).”
“In the midst of a catastrophic pandemic,” says Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, Republicans “should be focused on protecting seniors, essential workers, and the unemployed. Instead, they are plotting to use the cover of the pandemic to slash Social Security.”
“The TRUST Act — the acronym stands portentously for “Time to Rescue United States’ Trusts” — would work by ginning up a sense of near-term emergency about the finances of Social Security, Medicare and the federal highway trust fund.”
“The crisis is largely imaginary, for the Social Security trust fund, by far the biggest of the reserves with $2.9 trillion today, is not in danger of exhaustion for at least 15 years. Nevertheless, the TRUST Act would require the Treasury to issue a report on the status of the funds within 45 days of the measure’s passage.”
Oh really? Is this imaginary?
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
To answer your first question; yes, columnists can and do state their opinion which obviously reflects their biases all the time. They are NOT reporters and likely are not journalists. Philadelphia Inquirer states thus on their letters-to-editor page:
Column: Unlike reporters, columnists are allowed to include their viewpoints and opinions when presenting their reporting.
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The major social media platforms have been banning and deleting accounts of people who post “fake news” in their opinion, not that I think that is right but that is a whole other post. People that go against the narrative of WHO’s covid-19 or even conservative views get deplatformed. Even some duly elected politicians have had their tweets removed and sometimes for even rare time that they told the truth or reporting what they are doing.
I don’t think that these platform should censor anybody since who are they to judge what is true. How else do you get to think critically if you don’t have an opposing point of view? How do you get to write a congressman for doing something stupid if you don’t know what he said?
But I am really surprised that they have not banned the Social Security Trustees report for being fake news since it goes against everybody else narrative that the fund is not running out of money. Against the claims that there is extra money to increase benefits. I fear that day will come when official report are once again buried and not to be found since newspapers no longer practice journalism.
I want to re-read 1984 again but I am afraid of the parallels that I might find from the Ministry of Truth.
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