Dan Calabrese

Great.

Just when you elect a few politicians who have some sense of reality with respect to the unsustainability of federal entitlement programs, the public rises up in blissful ignorance to make clear it’s still clinging to delusion.

And the Associated Press is right there to serve as their champion.

Reporting a new poll out from the AP and GfK, reporters Richard Alonso-Zaldivar and Stephen Ohlenmacher can hardly contain their glee at the public’s continued ostrichization:

“They’re not buying it. Most Americans say they don’t believe Medicare has to be cut to balance the federal budget, and ditto for Social Security, a new poll shows. The Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that arguments for overhauling the massive benefit programs to pare government debt have failed to sway the public. The debate is unlikely to be resolved before next year’s elections for president and Congress.”

The AP then presents us with a quote from a genius who apparently believes money is generated by voter desire:

“I’m pretty confident Medicare will be there, because there would be a rebellion among voters,” said Nicholas Read, 67, a retired teacher who lives near Buffalo, N.Y. “Republicans only got a hint of that this year. They got burned. They touched the hot stove.”

You see how it works? Medicare “will be there,” because without it, “there would be a rebellion among voters.” It makes no difference that spending on entitlements is already so out of control, you could eliminate every other expenditure from the federal budget – but because of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, you still would not have a balanced budget.

It makes no difference that the federal deficit has soared to more than 12 percent of GDP – higher than any period since World War II – and that overall spending of 24 percent of GDP shares the same infamous distinction. It makes no difference that entitlement spending accounts for more than half of this. It makes no difference that unfunded entitlement mandates now total $59 trillion (on top of the comparatively paltry $14 trillion national debt), and that there is not, and never will be, enough money in the entire world to cover these obligations.

No.

The only thing that matters is that a poll shows the public is “not buying it,” which means that the programs will always be what they’ve always been, irrespective of the fact that this is impossible.

We have two problems here, although they are really two sides of the same coin. The first is the public’s ignorance. This guy from Buffalo can express any opinion he wants. It doesn’t change the facts. The programs are unsustainable, and must be radically reformed, or the nation faces fiscal collapse. He can persist in “not buying it” until the cows come home, but the facts will remain.

The second, however, is the bigger problem.

We have politicians who continue to deny that this plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face problem exists, and we have media outlets like the AP who treat this insistence as if it were a legitimate point of view. The same media, which treat those skeptical of anthropogenic global warming claims as if they were akin to Holocaust deniers, treat those who deny the seriousness of the entitlement crisis is as if they were mainstream, responsible voices in the public debate.

And they’ve done such a good job, that they’ve convinced a majority of the public there is no problem, when there is, in fact, a huge problem. Unbowed, the AP goes ahead and writes a story about the public’s skepticism, treating these proud-but-deluded skeptics as if they have somehow sniffed out an utter fraud, and thus are laudable heroes.

It’s true that there are at least two sides to every story. Sometimes there are seven or eight sides. But not every “side” deserves the same deference. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t mean they’re right. Sometimes it means the same propaganda machine that convinced them of the fiction, and now happily reports their ignorance as if it were confirmation of the company line, has gotten drunk on its own success.

Why do you think the nation’s bar tab is so enormous?

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