My mother often used this phrase to describe a person she viewed as a pathological liar: “He will tell you a lie when the truth would sound better”. There really are very seriously disturbed people like that, and our government seems to have adopted that tactic as well where it comes to scheduled increases in Social Security Benefits.

Unless you’ve been living in a remote cave without electricity the past 20 years or so, all very best economics experts have been telling us that Social Security will eventually go bust if something radical isn’t done to rein in those costs. Economically challenged President George W. Bush actually accelerated the demise of Social Security when he pushed through Medicare Part D, which provides added prescription drug coverage to existing Medicare benefits.

So it isn’t hard to understand why the federal government has decided not to allow Cost of Living Allowances for Social Security recipients for the second straight year, but it is totally unacceptable to lie about it.

There is no inflation, they tell us. To paraphrase, it goes like this: Are you going to believe your wallet, or are you going to believe what we tell you”? Of course the actual cost of living has gone up the past two years! Of course the value of the dollar has dropped 20% the past ten years! Home prices are plummeting, but the actual cost of living for everyday needs like food, fuel and all forms of insurance are certainly higher this year than last, and we know that because our wallet tells us so, especially if we are unemployed or retired.

But they prefer to lie to us anyway, because they don’t think we can handle the truth of the matter without rioting in the streets. Instead, they insult us by insisting that what we are experiencing in reduced purchasing power almost daily is a mere figment of our imagination. You can pull that ruse somewhat successfully when discussing the existence of Sasquatch or flying saucers, but hard numbers are another matter altogether: You either have the same buying power with the same amount of income this year as you had last year, or you don’t. Which is it?

The problem is that Congress enacted a law that requires the government to pay COLA increases to Social Security recipients, and since that law has never been repealed, the government decided to fudge the numbers by excluding the costs of food and fuel from the equation they use to establish the “official” cost of living index. It comes down to that age-old adage that, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure”. Like a corrupt cop who justifies planting evidence to convict a criminal suspect he is certain is guilty, our government justifies these lies as being for our own good, because they know that if they reported true, cost of living increases, the law would force them to increase the Social Security benefits until the well is completely dry a lot sooner than later. Now that’s the truth!

It just makes it that much more hard to tolerate when they insult our intelligence and lie to us about it.

October 17, 2010

Carl F. Worden