Seven Wishes
More obfuscation in the confusing fiduciary fight over Social Security, made plain by Media Matters (and Atrios--aka Duncan Black--who writes for Media Matters as well) in this coverage of a report from NPR:

Reporting on a town meeting on Social Security reform that Representative Chris Chocola (R-IN) hosted during which a participant suggested that it would be better "to raise the money that people pay into it as they get bigger and bigger salaries," Naylor said, "Chocola says raising or eliminating the cap on earnings that get taxed for Social Security, now $90,000, would only put off the problem." Naylor then played a clip of Chocola stating, "If you eliminate the cap on earnings, so if you made a million dollars a year, you'd pay Social Security taxes on all that million, you would delay the problem by seven years."

As Media Matters previously explained (when The New York Times echoed a similar claim by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX)), this seven-year figure refers only to the effect that lifting the cap would have on the date when the program stops running annual surpluses. Under current law, the Social Security trustees predict that this will occur in 2018; lifting the cap would extend this date to 2025. But this seven-year figure conceals the impact that lifting the cap would have on the real "problem" that Social Security faces: its long-term inability to pay all benefits promised under current law.

The Social Security trustees project that removing the income cap entirely would enable the the program to pay all benefits currently promised for 37 more years -- from 2042, as projected under current law, to 2079. That's because if the cap were eliminated, the surpluses accumulated prior to 2024 would be substantially larger than projected under current law, and subsequent annual deficits would be smaller. These accumulated surpluses, combined with the increased revenue stream from payroll taxes, would be sufficient to pay benefits much further into the future.

Don't believe the anti-hype.