It really is a "plan," and don't you forget it.

Never mind, as the Washington Examiner's Conn Carroll inconveniently points out, that the document produced by the "Gang of Six" -- Republican Senators Coburn, Chambliss, and Crapo, along with Democratic Senators Conrad, Warner, and Durbin -- is all of five pages. If you take out the white space, it's about 3-1/2.

Early this evening, the Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher called the output of the Gang of Six a "plan" no fewer than 12 times -- and his report's headline was "Bipartisan tax plan trims mortgage deduction." Okay, Steve, even though you (and the Gang) are obviously wrong, we get it.

The opening paragraph of Saturday morning's Associated Press report by Stephen Ohlemacher and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar on the state of Social Security and Medicare and an additional sentence from the third paragraph give away the fact that theirs will not be a missive that should be taken seriously (bold is mine):

The bad economy is worsening the already-shaky finances of Medicare and Social Security, draining the trust funds supporting them faster than expected and intensifying the need for Congress to shore up the massive benefit programs, the government said Friday.

 

... The Social Security trust funds are projected to be drained in 2036, one year earlier than the last estimate.

This post will concentrate on Social Security. By referring to the idea that its trust fund is being "drained," the pair are perpetuating the myth that the Social Security system has a stash of cash and investments just sitting there ready to be redeemed and distributed as benefits when needed. This of course is false. What follows are four fundamental truths about Social Security.

Did you know that the "big new tax law" signed by President Obama yesterday "will save taxpayers, on average, about $3,000 next year," and that it will have "tax breaks for being married, having children, paying for child care, going to college or investing in securities"?

Don't spend that extra $3,000 yet, because it mostly won't be there. With the only major exception being the 2-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, and of course barring new legislation the next Congress may take on, the tax laws for the next two years will essentially be the same as they have been since 2003, when Congress lowered marginal income, capital gain, and dividend income tax rates.

This lack of major change didn't stop the Ministry of Propaganda -- er, the Associated Press -- and reporter Stephen Ohlemacher from calling the new legislation "the most significant new tax law in a decade," when there's almost nothing "new" about it, or from trumpeting how much certain American families will "save" as a result.

Here are a few paragraphs from Ohlemacher's report:

There's a big "surprise" in the ObamaCare legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the President in late March. Imagine that.

This morning, the Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher reported on the status of one of them, namely an IRS-related provision in the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" that has nothing to do with patient protection or providing affordable care. The AP reporter does a decent job of explaining the current situation, but doesn't tell readers how or why the problem arose in the first place. He also gives Democrats cover for what appears to be a half-hearted effort at repeal.

The key point Ohlemacher avoided is that no almost no one in Congress had any idea that the provision, which extends Form 1099 filing requirements to virtually all vendor payments exceeding $600 in a calendar year, was in the bill. It's also clear that very few outside of Congress were aware of the provision during the run-up to the final votes, as the result of a Google News Archive search on "Obamacare 1099 $600" (not typed in quotes) shows:

Here are selected paragraphs from Ohlemacher's report (bolds are mine):