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Journal pudge's Journal: More on Social Security 10

Journal by pudge

This morning I am watching Fox News Sunday, and first up is Dan Bartlett. He was spinning, characterizing things in what I think is unfair way.

For example. he echoed what the President said, that private accounts are not a replacement for Social Security benefits. But they are. Essentially, the proportion in which you pay into private accounts is the proportion by which your Social Security benefits are reduced. It is a replacement.

But most of my problems with him were semantic and characterization issues. And then Nancy Pelosi took the stage. And she said things that were just false, or ignorant of the facts, to the point of being patently irresponsible.

She said, for example, that Social Security won't start paying out more money than it takes in until 2030. She said that simply not taking money out of the Trust Fund will solve the solvency problem, and that nothing else needs to be done. This just ignores the data, which says that of the three sets of assumptions, only the most optimistic set will produce that outcome.

You could argue that this is the most reasonable guess, as it has performed well in the past, but it has a lot of question marks in it -- especially, to my mind, in regard to its near-stagnant increase in life expectancy -- and at the very least, it is irresponsible to assume that we will achieve this set of assumptions. We have to, if we want to keep Social Security solvent, assume that the best-case scenario will not happen.

And that's really the simplest and most obvious criticism of the Democrat line: it only works if everything turns out well. It has no backup, no solution, no fix for if things turn out differently.

Pelosi also echoed Harry Reid in her attack on Alan Greenspan, who called Greenspan a "partisan hack" for supporting Bush in much of what he's saying about Social Security.

The problem is, Greenspan was a vocal supporter of Clinton when that President was trying to reform Social Security. He didn't agree with everything Clinton wanted to do -- Clinton wanted to invest the Trust Fund in the stock market, which Greenspan hated -- but he also supported the Clinton plan in significant ways, including in using the budget surplus to pay down the debt.

Pelosi said Greenspan should stick to talking about taxes and interest rates etc.. But what is Social Security but taxes and government debt, which affect interest rates? Greenspan served as Chairman of the National Commission on Social Security Reform from 81-87, when he then became Fed Chairman. This is an issue he cares about. And his statements on the matter have been consistent throughout his terms as Chairman of the Fed. You may disagree with him, but to call him a partisan hack is really beyond the pale, especially since Reid and Pelosi must know that he's not, if I can figure it out.

In this issue where I am critical of the Republican line, it's hard to be sympathetic to the Democrats, when they are led by two people who don't give a damn about the truth or responsibility, but only care about defeating the President, at apparently any cost.

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

More on Social Security More

More on Social Security

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  • that other partisans were as reasonable as you. I think that most Americans would be pleased with any of an array of middle ground options that solve the problem. But our "leaders" are more interested in making political points than honestly addressing the issue.

    If we can't talk accurately about this issue then we are sunk on the bigger issues of Medicare and the deficit.

  • A man who betrays the Republican admin on Iraq/terrorism to sell a book (Richard Clarke) is defended to the hilt even when he is caught in an outright lie. His profile is similar to Greenspan's, has served since the Reagan admin, a very high level bureaucrat who has no desire to get elected to office, and frankly both are/were highly respected by republicans and democrats alike. What is the difference?
  • Privatized accounts aren't even a permanent solution. They should just be a step toward the phasing out of social security.
  • The GOP won a big victory in 1993-94 by holding firm against Clinton's health care reform plan. Payback time.
    • There's an article in the current National Review by Ramesh Ponnuru about how "ClintonCare" is not like Social Security.

      He makes some good points in it. First, the two are different. There is no denying that there is a better than even chance that Social Security will be insolvent in our lifetimes if left unchanged, as Pelosi and other Democrat leaders want, while with health care there was no such danger.

      Second, in a related point, people at the time saw no real need for it. They saw problems with hea
      • But privatization is extremely unpopular. The Democrats know this as well as the Republicans do. As long as Bush et al. are seen as pushing privatization instead of fixes that might actually work (e.g. raising the income cap on FICA, increasing the retirement age) they don't have popular support.
        • But privatization is extremely unpopular.

          First, that remains to be seen. The numbers on this have been fluctuating wildly.

          Second, that's not really the point: the play they've made is that they will end up being the reason there is no reform at all, and some sort of reform is more popular than private accounts are unpopular.

          That is, if this plays out as I said, the Democrats can at best say at the end of the day, "we prevented the Republicans from doing private accounts." The Republicans can say, "the
          • "we prevented the Republicans from doing private accounts."

            But that's not the language they will use. The language will be "We stopped Bush and his corporate cronies from cutting your benefits to privatize Social Security." You have to admit that this will be an effective message, particularly for middle-aged workers whose benefits will be cut by Bush but won't by the Democrats.

            • But that's not the language they will use

              Of course. Neither is the language I showed the Republicans using what they will use, either.

              You have to admit that this will be an effective message

              So will be the Republican message: "We tried to save Social Security, but the Democrats stopped us. Because of them, starting in 2042, you'll only get 73 cents on the dollar for your benefits."

              Maybe private accounts hurts the Republicans more than the Democrats, whether they are gotten or not. But if reform doe

          • But privatization is extremely unpopular.

            First, that remains to be seen. The numbers on this have been fluctuating wildly.

            The weird bit is that, in most cases, the people who have the lowest opinion of it are those who won't be affected by it. Those who are already in their mid-50s or older will get to continue to leech off of the rest of us. Privatization has majority support (or close to it) among people in their 20s and 30s (more so for the former than the latter).

            The big problem is that olde

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