Washington Post reporter Erica Werner tweeted yesterday that House Republicans “have released a budget that balances in 9 years via big cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.” Her story on the website is flagged, “House GOP plan would cut Medicare, Social Security to balance budget.”

The story includes the line, “House Republicans released a proposal Tuesday that would balance the budget in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, that President Trump vowed not to touch.”

But later in the story we learn that “Social Security comes in for more modest cuts of $4 billion over the decade, which the budget projects could be reached by eliminating concurrent receipt of unemployment benefits and Social Security disability insurance.”

Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute comments that this “was just a tiny old Obama proposal to trim some duplicative payments in the disability program — just 0.02% of the Social Security budget (as in 1/50 of 1%). . . . When Obama used to propose it, it was never even covered because it was so small and non-controversial.

“And again, no seniors would be cut even one penny.”

This seems like rather important context. I’d be happy to see Social Security benefit growth restrained, which is not the same thing as cutting benefits for current retirees and near-retirees. But it doesn’t look like Republicans are doing either.