An extreme position does not become less extreme simply because someone can propose something even more extreme. Massacring 100 children does not become a moderate position just because someone is advocating killing 200 children.

That is how this debate should be viewed when “moderate” voices argue that the country must deal with the $40 trillion debt through both spending cuts and tax hikes. The programs most often placed on the chopping block are the federal government’s largest: Social Security pays benefits to roughly 68 million people each month, and Medicare covers about 67 million older and disabled Americans. The stated urgency rests in part on the trustees’ projection that Social Security’s combined trust funds will be able to pay full scheduled benefits only into the mid-2030s, after which payroll tax revenue would still cover roughly four-fifths of the promised amounts. In reality, aside from the military and Homeland Security, there is little spending fat to cut, as even Elon Musk inadvertently acknowledged. If there is a deficit problem, the issue is on the tax side, as can be easily shown. The rich have taken an ever-larger share of national income over the last half-century, and they do not want to pay taxes on their winnings.

Major media outlets, all controlled by rich people, are presenting themselves as moderate by insisting that both taxes must rise and spending must fall. But there is nothing moderate about arguing that programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid must be cut because Republicans have given large tax breaks to their campaign contributors.

Republicans pushed those tax cuts knowing they would increase the deficit, but they did not make corresponding spending cuts because such cuts would be wildly unpopular. Now they are using their control over the media to insist that those cuts are absolutely necessary to offset the lost tax revenue from tax cuts enacted under Reagan, Bush II, and Trump. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had been scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, and the 2025 legislation extending those cuts was projected by the Congressional Budget Office to add trillions of dollars to deficits over the coming decade.

The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post offered a clear example of this false moderation in an editorial titled, “To get the national debt under control, start with the retirement state.” The piece uses the example of a two-earner couple with average annual earnings of $100,000. It says that a couple turning 65 in 2025 can expect lifetime Social Security benefits of $739,000 compared with tax contributions of just $597,000. A couple with the same income retiring in 2045 can expect lifetime benefits of $987,000 compared with tax contributions of $735,000.

After presenting that disparity for Social Security, and a similar argument for Medicare, the editorial then calls for reducing Social Security for high-income people. That is three-card Monte-level deception.

If the goal is to reduce benefits for high-income workers, honest people would compare taxes and benefits for high-income workers. Social Security is explicitly designed with a progressive payback structure, which means relatively moderate-income workers, like those highlighted in the Washington Post editorial, receive higher paybacks relative to their taxes.

If the editors wanted an apples-to-apples comparison, the picture would look different. Using the same source, high-income people pay far more in taxes than they get back in benefits. For a high-income woman retiring in 2025, the gap is $263,000. For a high-income man, the gap is $336,000. The gap is larger for men because their life expectancy is shorter. For a high-income woman retiring in 2045, the gap is $259,000. For a high-income man, it is $346,000.

If the point is to argue for reducing benefits for high-income retirees, then the taxes and benefits for high-income retirees should be shown. No one disputes that Social Security looks like a good deal for more moderate-income retirees, but those retirees typically do not have much income in retirement. Social Security Administration data show that for about half of elderly beneficiaries, the program provides at least half of their income. Jeff Bezos’ paper would apparently have been too embarrassed to argue that the average monthly Social Security benefit of $2,071 should be cut.

The Post also argues that if Social Security is cut, people should rely more on private 401(k)s. Beyond increasing risk, that approach is also highly inefficient. Private 401(k)s cost more than 40 times as much to administer per dollar of benefits as Social Security. Mr. Bezos may be happy to see more money flowing to his wealthy friends in the financial industry, but most people would prefer the money go to ordinary workers.

Medicare Benefits: Big Bucks to Hospitals and Drug Companies Are Not Benefits to Workers

The Post’s graphs do show a large gap between the taxes paid for Medicare and the cost of the benefits received. But that presentation is also deceptive.

In the United States, per-person healthcare spending is almost twice as high as the average in other wealthy countries. The total now runs to roughly 18 percent of GDP, more than $4.5 trillion a year. That is not because Americans get more or better care. U.S. life expectancy ranks near the bottom among wealthy countries.

The extra money in healthcare largely goes to drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical equipment makers, and doctors. In each case, the United States pays two times as much, or more, than people in other wealthy countries. A publication that was not answerable to one of the richest people in the world would suggest bringing U.S. payments into line with the rest of the world. Instead, the Washington Post wants to target the country’s retirees.

No one should be confused: cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits to reduce the deficit is not a moderate position. It is a policy that attacks hundreds of millions of ordinary workers in order to avoid taxing the rich or reducing waste in the healthcare system. That is extreme, but the wealthy media owners promoting it will do everything they can to convince readers they are being fair and balanced.