The Washington Post published an analysis describing how an ad for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign attacked a Social Security plan from President Trump that “does not exist.”
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler fact-checked an ad from the Biden camp this month that claimed Social Security benefits will run dry by 2023, in a piece titled “Biden campaign attacks a Trump Social Security ‘plan’ that does not exist.”
The ad claims, “The chief actuary of the Social Security Administration just released an analysis of Trump’s planned cuts to Social Security. Under Trump’s plan, Social Security would become permanently depleted by the middle of calendar year 2023. If Trump gets his way, Social Security benefits will run out in just three years from now. Don’t let it happen. Joe Biden will protect Social Security.”
“Trump gets mentioned in this ad three times. But there is no such Trump plan,” Kessler wrote, before awarding the ad four Pinocchios.
Kessler broke down “the facts” of the claim, saying Trump signed an executive order that “would halt collection of the 6.2 percent payroll tax imposed on wages for Social Security, starting Sept. 1.”
“While the Trump White House has suggested this is similar to a payroll tax holiday in the Obama administration during the Great Recession, that law had a provision saying Social Security would be made whole with transfers from general funds (regular tax revenue). This executive order does not say that, but one would presume that any forgiveness would be accompanied by such transfers,” he wrote.
Kessler quoted the president, who clarified this summer that Social Security won’t be harmed by deferred payroll taxes.
“When we win the election — when I win the election, I’m going to completely and totally forgive all deferred payroll taxes without in any way, shape, or form hurting Social Security. That money is going to come from the general fund. We’re not going to touch Social Security. I said from day one that we’re going to protect Social Security, and we’re going to protect our people,” Trump said.
Forbes’s Elizabeth Bauer also published a piece titled “Biden Claims Trump Has ‘Planned Cuts To Social Security’ By Killing The Payroll Tax. What Are The Facts?,” slamming the Biden campaign’s “false” claim.
Bauer said of the ad, “I can’t even begin to say how false this is.”
“The Chief Actuary did not ‘release an analysis of Trump’s planned cuts.’ They responded to a request by Senate Democrats to evaluate a hypothetical scenario in which payroll taxes were eliminated without replacement. But Donald Trump has said, of his proposal to eliminate payroll taxes, ‘That money is going to come from the General Fund.’ In other words, it will be funded by the same set of revenues and borrowed money as every other sort of expense of the federal government that doesn’t have a dedicated revenue source,” she added.
Bauer said that Trump has no “planned cuts” and that “Social Security benefit checks will continue to arrive as usual.”
In his piece, Kessler added, “Democrats ginned up a letter from the chief actuary to describe a plan that does not currently exist. Trump certainly suggested he might eliminate the payroll tax, but then he pulled back from that idea and reiterated that any diversion for a payroll tax holiday would come out of general funds.”
