Yes, George W. Bush lied

George W. Bush lied yesterday.

There's no other word for what he did, no wiggle room for his defenders or for people like Nick Kristof who feel that we should never, ever say "the president lied" just because the president lied.

It wasn't a misstatement. It wasn't mere exaggeration. It wasn't a matter of his naively accepting bad intelligence from the CIA or the British. The president conducted a public forum on Social Security and he deliberately, intentionally lied about that subject.

Here's what he said, as quoted in The New York Times, the local Salt Lake Tribune and just about every other newspaper in the country. The quote here is cut and pasted from www.whitehouse.gov:

"As a matter of fact, by the time today's workers who are in their mid-20s begin to retire, the system will be bankrupt. So if you're 20 years old, in your mid-20s, and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now. And that's what we're here to talk about, a system that will be bankrupt."

That's not true.

Not according to the most recent report from the trustees of the Social Security Administration. That report does not suggest that "the system will be bankrupt … flat bust, bankrupt … bankrupt" even in 2042, when it says the program's trust fund may be exhausted.

It's not surprising, perhaps, that President Bush would misrepresent what he knows about the future of Social Security. After all, he shared a platform yesterday with " Andrew Biggs, associate commissioner for retirement policy at the Social Security Administration," and what Biggs said at the forum wasn't true either: " In around 15 years, Social Security will start running deficits. … It will collect less in taxes than it owes to people in benefits. And in 2042, the trust fund itself will become insolvent."

If Biggs is going to go around telling the public that Social Security "will start running deficits" once it begins to collect less in taxes than it owes in benefits, then he probably shouldn't mention the trust fund at all. The existence of that trust fund, after all, is what makes his talk of "deficits" inaccurate.

Biggs knows better. So does Bush. What the trustees' report says is that a few years after the baby boomers begin to retire, around 15 years from now, the program will begin tapping into its trust fund in order to pay benefits to the retirees of this, the largest-ever American generation.

Where did this trust fund come from? From the same demographic bubble that it will go to pay for — from the surplus created over the past several decades while this largest-ever generation is part of the work force, paying into the system.

President Bush rightly notes that people are living longer these days, and the boomers are likely to outlive the trust fund they created — that's the problem looming in 2042 (or 2052, if you use the CBO's numbers). That is when the system will begin running deficits. Those 37- or 47-years-hence shortfalls are nowhere near large enough to be described as "bankrupt, bankrupt, bankrupt."

George W. Bush lied. And George W. Bush doesn't care that he lied. And he doesn't care that you know he lied because he knows that more people will believe his lies than not, which was what yesterday's forum on Social Security was all about.

Kevin Drum asks an appropriate question:

What should a responsible press do when faced with a president who baldly lies over and over about stuff like this in a blatant attempt to scare the hell out of people? Somebody needs to figure it out, because people like George Bush have no incentive to stop lying if the press lets them get away with it.

Matt Yglesias responds with the kind of thorough, objective and accurate statement that a responsible press ought to be making, but isn't likely to any time soon. " After quoting Bush lying to 27-year-old Josh Wright, saying that Social Security 'will be bust by the time it comes for you to retire,'" Matt says, journalists ought to provide something like the following:

But according to the Social Security Administration, if no changes are made workers who retire in 2041, when Wright will turn 65, the program will have enough money to pay full benefits. For workers retiring in 2043 and beyond, there will have to be benefit cuts unless taxes are raised, but guaranteed benefits would still be higher in real terms than those paid today and higher than the ones offered by Bush's proposal. According to the Congressional Budget Office, full benefits can be paid until 2052. Because of its dedicated revenue stream, Social Security can never "go bust" no matter what happens, though benefits may need to become less generous.

UPDATE: Brad DeLong points to a piece by Rex Nutting of CBS Marketwatch that suggests a responsible press may still exist if you're willing to search for it.