Think Tanker Masquerades as "Regular Folk" to Shill for Social Security "Reform"

When White House Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten introduced a "single mom" from Iowa to promote President Bush's plan to dismantle Social Security, she was presented as one of the "regular folks" in favor of private savings accounts. But Sandra Jaques, who addressed a White House economics conference on Thursday, "is not any random single mother," the New York Times' Edmund Andrews wrote. "She is the Iowa state director of a conservative advocacy group, FreedomWorks, whose founders are Jack F. Kemp, the former vice-presidential nominee, and Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader." FreedomWorks was formed by a merger in July 2004 of Citizens for a Sound Economy and Empower America. The American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias points out how a "little incidental dishonesty slip by" in Andrews' "otherwise excellent" article. Recently, the Times' Paul Krugman thought explaining the manufactured Social Security crisis was so important that he took "a break from my break" to debunk the hype: "Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people's lives better and more secure. And that's why the right wants to destroy it."