...We come down somewhat in the middle on this debate. The fact that the system is running a negative cash flow now — and the foreseeable future — is an important warning sign of fiscal imbalance.... Yes, Social Security in the past has not contributed to the nation’s debt. But it’s basically a meaningless fact and actually distracts from the long-term fiscal problem posed by the retirement of the baby boom generation and the shrinking of the nation’s labor pool. We are going to label this with that relatively rare rating: “true but false.”

Maybe it's Fred Hiatt's rule that the paper just can't print anything about Social Security that suggests the program is in fact not in crisis, is perfectly healthy for the next couple of decades, and requires a straightforward revenue change to make it solvent for the next half dozen or more decades. So when thechecker, Glenn Kessler, gets around to thethat Social Security does not indeed contribute to the deficit, he gets rather pretzled in his argument. How twisted? He rated the claim that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit "true but false" because that basic truth is "meaningless."

It's fine now, and for the next 25 years, but if the people who have paid into this insurance system for all of their working lives aren't cheated out of the benefits they earned right now, then it will be in crisis and will bring the whole economy down. Or something.

Dean Baker does a better job of dismantling Kessler than I could, so here he is.

Let's imagine that Wall Street investment banker and long-time Social Security foe Peter Peterson had $1 billion in government bonds (also known as "IOUs"). Suppose that he decided to sell them. According to Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post's fact checker, this would create a burden for the U.S. government. This sale of bonds would displace other bonds that the United States might want to sell in the financial market. This would lead to higher interest rates on U.S. debt. Therefore Mr. Peterson is contributing to our deficit problem. That may seem more than a little silly to readers, which it is. Yet, this is the same way in which Kessler says that Social Security will be creating a fiscal burden.... Kessler also gets wrong the baseline for the projected longer-term shortfall for Social Security. After 2036 the program is projected to only have enough money to pay a bit less than 80 percent of scheduled benefits. However, if the law is never changed, then the program would only pay the benefits that could be financed through incoming Social Security tax revenue. The general fund would not be tapped to cover the shortfall. Of course Congress could change the law, but budget debates usually start from the law as written, not as some individual might imagine it will be changed in the future. In this sense, it is 100 percent accurate to say that Social Security does not now nor will it in the future contribute to the deficit. Congress could change the law so at some point it does contribute to the deficit, but that is just a guessing game, not the current reality.

So fact checking the fact checker, his claim that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit of being "true but false" is pretty much false. And silly, to boot. But it's the premise upon which all of the Very Serious People operate, so expect Kessler's tortured claim to be spread far and wide by the pain caucus.