Wonk Armageddon

Tomorrow is Social Security Trustees Report Day, normally the wonkiest day of the year here in Washington, DC, when the Social Security Trustees Board will release its annual report on the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds. These documents are deadly dull for normal human beings to puruse, but certain deranged persons such as myself actually sort of enjoy lingering over the tables, assumptions, and scenarios. Sadly, the mass media tends to ignore all that and simply pull out a couple of headline figures like the intermediate scenario's Trust Fund depletion date, and the present-value of the long-term gap between promised benefits and projected revenues. This tends to involve the reporting of at least one whopper where we compare present value figures from different years, neglecting the fact that one, say, 2002 dollar is actually a different amount of money from one 2005 dollar. All-in-all, though, the press forgets about the whole thing in a few days and life goes on.

But this year, the privateers are out in force and both sides' hacks are now fully engaged in all things Social Security. Combine that with the new constant news cycle, and you can expect tomorrow to be dominated by a gotterdammerung-esque clash as contending forces seek to control the headlines in Friday's paper. One thing we can be certain of is that the privateers will be seeking support for the specious claim that doing nothing costs $600 billion per year. We will also want to know if the Trust Fund depletion date grows nearer or further.

Normally, these documents are put together with a reasonable degree of integrity. My take is that the economic and demographic assumptions underlying the intermediate projection are too pessimistic, but this is a consistent year-to-year feature and not the result of some kind of fiddling. But the Trustees are, in fact, a gaggle of Bush appointees. Fiddling is a very real possibility. The stakes have rarely been higher. The White House has zero commitment to honesty, either rhetorical, financial, or intellectual. So fiddling must be expected. But it may also be hard to detect -- there are many, many, many sorts of assumptions buried in these reports. It should be an interesting afternoon. My plan, as of now, is to spend the morning hung over in preparation.