White House Attempt to Brag About Social Security Backfires When CNN and Politico Call Out 'Stupendous Self-Own'
When a leftist president gets called out by fellow leftists at CNN and Politico, you know he’s lost control of the narrative somewhere along the way.
That’s the situation President Joe Biden found himself in Wednesday morning after a tweet so disingenuous, even this allies in the establishment media couldn’t cover for him.
The president — or whatever minion he has run social media for him — tried to take credit Tuesday for “the biggest increase in [seniors’] Social Security checks in 10 years,” crediting the rise on Biden’s “leadership.”
My first thought when I saw that was that it’s been much longer than 10 years. My second thought: “Wow, you’ve got to have some guts to try to pull off a psyop of that magnitude.” (OK, I didn’t actually think “guts.” I inserted a Spanish word instead. But this is a family website.)
Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 1, 2022
If you take my initial thought, remove the psychological operations reference from my military background and replace it with preferred journalistic lingo, wonkify it a little and add a link to back up your claim because you know you work for a news outlet that people stopped trusting circa 1998, you’d get something like CNN senior reporter Daniel Dale’s take.
That’s quite the spin. The size of Social Security checks is linked, by law, to inflation (https://t.co/InySftYUDM). This year’s increase is unusually big because the inflation rate is unusually big. https://t.co/cRO83KIsHW
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 2, 2022
Tomato, tomahto. The point is, of course, that, yes, Social Security check amounts are up considerably, and, yes, that’s due to Biden’s leadership — but it’s to his blame, not to his credit.
Social Security benefits have since 1975 been pegged to inflation, the so-called Cost-of-Living Adjustment, or COLA. Biden’s policies have generated inflation that the U.S. hasn’t seen for decades, and thus, the largest entitlement check bump in recent memory.
Politico got it, arguing that the White House’s psyop — or spin, if you prefer — only added to the messaging confusion in the week before Election Day, a confusion that many “notable Democrats” say is contributing to a mounting red wave this year.
“THIS ISN’T HELPING [emphasis in the original] — On Tuesday afternoon, the following message was posted to the White House Twitter account: ‘Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.’ But by connecting the COLA hike to presidential leadership, the Biden Twitter shop executed a truly stupendous self-own. For nearly 50 years, Social Security benefit hikes have been pegged to the Consumer Price Index — i.e., inflation. So, congrats?”
Again, that’s Politico. Not Newsmax or The Western Journal or even Fox News. When Politico tells a Democrat that his people just “executed a truly stupendous self-own,” you know that “truly stupendous” is an understatement. The best Politico could do with it was blame “the Biden Twitter shop” for the disaster, rather than the president himself.
I’m sure that’ll fix it.
The responses on Twitter were about what you’d expect.
This is like bragging that you lowered home heating bills by burning down everyone’s house.
— Jimmy Failla (@jimmyfailla) November 2, 2022
This is an indictment of your economic policies.The COLA adjustment is explicitly a response (and in this case an underwhelming one) to inflation caused by YOU. Oh, btw, that adjustment punched a $120B hole in the SS budget accelerating its trajectory towards insolvency. Kudos
— Vanessa Atalanta Wisedog (@Wisedog4) November 2, 2022
Inflation so high it triggered automatic COLA increases.
Biden: I did that!!!
— 100 Proof 🥃 (@ChampionCapua) November 1, 2022
Yeah, if we could go back to the prices of a couple years ago, I would be glad to not get the COLA increase. This won’t even cover the increase in our monthly grocery bill, let alone fuel or anything else.
— Kirsten 🇺🇸 (@EnbodyKirsten) November 2, 2022
A few replies pointed out that even if he were responsible for higher benefit amounts, Biden was also at least partly to blame for lower net check amounts, because he had twice helped to lead efforts to make Social Security benefits taxable.
That claim was fact checked by D.C.’s WUSA during the 2020 election and found to be true.
“In 1983, Joe Biden joined a bipartisan effort to make 50% of Social Security benefits taxable, for those above a certain income,” the outlet wrote after a viewer emailed to ask about the claim. “This new revenue would go towards the Social Security Trust Fund.
“In 1993, Biden joined a partisan effort to narrowly pass an ‘Omnibus Bill,’ mostly focused on lowering the deficit. Included in this large package was a bill that changed the level of taxable Social Security benefits from 50% to 85%. This new revenue would be directed to a trust fund for Medicare.”
But no one should be surprised to learn that; it’s how so-called “progressive” policies always work: The left giveth, and the left taketh away.
UPDATE, Nov. 3, 2022: The White House tweet was deleted Wednesday. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked why during a news conference Wednesday, and she said it was “incomplete.” “Look, the tweet was not complete. Usually, when we put out a tweet, we post it with context, and it did not have that context,” Jean-Pierre said.
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