A billboard in red capital letters, showcased at an Erie press conference this morning, offers this unpleasant truth: TAX CUTS THREATEN SOCIAL SECURITY
Bruce Ledewitz, a professor of law at Duquesne University, is dropping about $4,000 on the message, something he couldn’t do if his children were young. “I’m just spending their inheritance,’’ he says, with some hope he’s also ensuring there is something left in the kitty when they retire.
Most politicians lie, but the one about tax cuts paying for themselves is the go-to whopper that never gets old. Straight from the Magic Beans School of Economics, this no pain/all gain plan has been a sure crowd-pleaser in an era when the last thing any politician dares ask is for anything resembling a sacrifice.
“If taxes really paid for themselves,” Mr. Ledewitz said, “the tax rate would be 1 percent.’’
The economy is booming and we’re not supposed to notice that President Donald Trump and Congress are putting this party on the national credit card. (The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the annual budget deficit will top $1 trillion in 2020, and that our national debt — currently around $21 trillion — will jump to more than $33 trillion by 2028.)
House Speaker Paul Ryan is already talking about “entitlement reform,’’ which Mr. Ledewitz sees as “code for cutting Social Security and similar domestic programs.’’
But Mr. Ledewitz, who declares himself a pro-life Democrat, is a bipartisan critic. He has to be because the party in power tends to over-promise, which is the kindest thing one can call a lie. President Barack Obama repeatedly said variations of, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.’’
PolitiFact named that its Lie of the Year for 2013. Here in the land of the Highmark/UPMC death struggle, we all know why.
Mr. Ledewitz’s Social Security warning will greet westbound riders on Interstate 86, and Mr. Ledewitz chose that location because Erie County twice voted for Mr. Obama before flipping for Mr. Trump in 2016. Voters in swing districts have more power than most to change things, and Mr. Ledewitz hopes to ignite a national movement of ordinary citizens challenging the lies that both political parties tell.
It’s of a piece with Duquesne University’s Truth-Justice-Democracy Initiative to heal American life. The next step will be a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Bends Toward Justice Podcast Series, inspired by a Christian observation popularized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’’
Mr. Ledewitz will be asking his guests, “Do you think Dr. King was right or do you think he was naive?” Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of “The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People,’’ has agreed to do the first podcast. Mr. Ledewitz hopes he can find funding for four in all.
Meanwhile, it’s up to the rest of us to hold political candidates’ feet to the fire of truth.
“I want to see every candidate running for Congress asked a simple question: Do tax cuts pay for themselves? If the candidate answers yes, you don’t vote for them. That person is a liar.’’
But if the person answers truthfully with a “no, but,’’ then there is room for debate about whether the price is worth paying.
“I just want to see policy debates start with a factual premise.’’
This billboard arrives, by chance, in the same week that Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said “truth isn’t truth.’’ You can wind up talking that way when your boss seems to believe that anything that sounds good to him has to be true. In this atmosphere, can any American believe it’s even possible to begin all debates from a factual premise?
I think I’m taking correct measure of the national cynicism when I ask that question. It will be no easy task to get back to bipartisan solutions and tolerance of opposing views when almost everyone in politics seems to be playing a fierce game of shirts-and-skins.
Mr. Ledewitz believes there’s sufficient time to solve the shortfall in Social Security revenue with modest changes. But for him the central issue is neither taxes nor Social Security. He genuinely fears the end of democracy. Thus he’s putting his money where his fears are, and hoping others join in like fashion.
I told him his billboard might just blend in with those that say things like “Repent!” He said he thought those also have an impact, but it’s hard to see.
Brian O’Neill: boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947 or Twitter @brotheroneill
First Published: August 23, 2018, 4:00 a.m.
