The Granny Bashers: Different Facts, Same Policy

Monday 16 March 2009
by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

The granny basher crew constitutes one of the largest and most determined lobbies in Washington. The top priority for this lobby is to cut Social Security and Medicare.

The lobby includes the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, with an endowment of more than $1 billion from the private equity tycoon himself. It also includes The Washington Post, which liberally sprinkles assertions about the need to cut Social Security and Medicare in both its news and editorial pages. Many prominent members of Congress also belong to the club, along with much of the punditry who make their living pronouncing on public policy.

The granny bashers' theme is that Social Security and Medicare constitute an enormous generational injustice because the young, and those yet to be born, will be forced to pay for the cost of these programs for retirees and current workers. Of course, the reality is that the vast majority of the granny bashers' horror stories about generational inequity stems from the cost of sustaining a broken health care system not from programs for retirees.