Paul Krugman then repeated the original misstatements. Under Bush’s proposal, workers will have a choice about whether to open a personal account. If they open one, they will be choosing to rely more on those accounts, and less on government checks, for their retirements than the people who choose to stay in the regular system. In return for the opportunity to build a nest egg in the account, in other words, workers would have to accept smaller checks from the government. People who choose the accounts will come out ahead if their investments get a return that averages above 3 percent a year. From this fact, the Post somehow concluded that Bush was going to let workers get only the returns above 3 percent, while the government would take everything up to 3 percent. That would make the proposal a very bad deal for workers. But it’s not true.
Not all the confusion about the president’s plan is the result of incompetent reporting. On Fox News, Vice President Dick Cheney said that the plan involved trillions of dollars in “transition costs.” Viewers who are not experts on Social Securityalmost all viewers, in other words-were left with the incorrect notes & asides
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