Social Security - Republicans In Touch With Reality

What did Edmund Andrews of the Times tells us yesterday?  Oh, yes:

OF all the arguments being made to replace part of Social Security with private retirement accounts, few are more seductive and more misleading than the prospect of earning higher returns.

Get ready to hear a lot about this next week, when President Bush is host for a two-day economic conference that is expected to focus sharply on Social Security.

Well, another day, another story - today, Mr. Andrews assures us that Republicans are well aware that higher equity returns are a separate issue from solving the funding problem of Social Security:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 - As President Bush gears up for a major public push to overhaul Social Security, he has focused almost all his rhetorical energy on the need to let people divert some of their taxes to private retirement accounts.

But nearly every leading Republican proposal on Capitol Hill acknowledges that private accounts by themselves do little to solve the system's projected shortfall of at least $3.5 trillion. Instead, those proposals rely on deep cuts in benefits to future retirees.

That uncomfortable political truth was driven home on Monday by the head of the investigative arm of Congress.

"The creation of private accounts for Social Security will not deal with the solvency and sustainability of the Social Security fund," that official, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, said in a speech on Monday.

Or, as Thomas Saving, a Republican-appointed trustee to the Social Security trust fund put it last week: "Fundamentally, if you don't reduce the benefits, you don't reduce the debt."

Emphasis added.  Although I said the same thing yesterday, it looks like I am still on the team.

But which team?  Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard finds three Republican tribes wandering the plains of Washington searching for the forty year solution:

...at the moment, Republicans are an even bigger problem for the White House. For a reform measure to win approval in Congress, Republicans must be united. True, the conventional wisdom in Washington is that entitlement reform requires bipartisanship. With only a handful of Democrats likely to sign on, however, that won't happen. So that leaves the matter with Republicans, and they are anything but together.

They're divided on the two biggest reform issues: how big a chunk should be carved out of payroll taxes for individual investment accounts and whether the growth of Social Security benefits should be curtailed. In the past, the White House suggested it might settle for 2 percent accounts. In other words, workers

could invest up to 2 percent of their income using money from the 6.2 percent they already pay in payroll (FICA) taxes. Now the White House is expected to go for accounts as large as 4 percent. Or--and this is under discussion--the president could opt for a phase-in, leading to 6 percent accounts in 10 years.

Most Republican reformers insist on large accounts. The bill sponsored by Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would instantly create 6 percent accounts. And they have a strong political argument. Since there's going to be a huge fight to get any private accounts at all, why settle for a piddling 2 percent? Why not go whole-hog and get what you really want?

...One can imagine a compromise among Republicans on the size of the accounts. A compromise on the more contentious issue of how to treat Social Security benefits is harder to imagine. The White House intends to deal with solvency by, as best I can tell, proposing to change the way benefits are calculated. Under current law, this is done by a "wage index." But since wages grow faster than inflation, so do benefits. Absent reform, benefits will be 40 percent greater in real terms in 2050. This is a major source of the system's impending insolvency. The White House would scrap the wage index in favor of a price index, which would calculate benefits by the rate of inflation.

But privatization is a separate issue from restoring the solvency of the system.  And since some Dems will resist any benefit cuts, and Reps will resist any tax increases, the solvency question is deeply problematic.  Some Reps prefer to see it left alone:

...What's simple, though, is the argument of Republicans who want Social Security reform to consist of investment accounts alone. It's a purely political argument: Should Bush propose to slow the growth of benefits, Social Security reform is doomed. It just won't pass. Yes, the Democratic argument that Bush would cut benefits is demagogic. But it will generate sufficient opposition to kill any chance of reform. AARP, by the way, is already opposed.

And there is a "Constructive Delay" camp led by Tom DeLay:

There's a third camp, those who would do nothing on Social Security because insolvency won't be a threat for a decade or more. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has privately questioned whether it makes sense to tackle Social Security now. After all, Republicans worked for years to gain control of Congress. Why jeopardize that by provoking a fight over Social Security?

Well.  The "crisis" of looming insolvency has been used to create the sense of urgency that puts big ideas like privatization on the table.  My guess is that a proposal that offers privatization without addressing solvency will lack political wings (although it might be the most sensible approach).

A deal may be possible.  Some Reps, such as Lindsay Graham, are proposing tax hikes.  And Mickey Kaus suggests his Grand Bargain (see his post of Dec 13, and try to close your eyes to the racy stuff about Bill and Denise - oh, it's rich!)

MORE:  My two cents on reform - raise the minimum benefit a bit, reduce the maximum benefit a lot, pretty much scrap the connection between what people pay and what they get back, and promote Social Security as an income program intended to keep the elderly out of poverty, not to preserve their pre-retirement lifestyle.  Higher earners will simply have to save more to live better.

Index benefits to something arcane like the lesser of COLA +1% or the wage index currently utilized - that way, real benefits rise, but less quickly than wages generally.

No cuts in benefits to current retirees or near-retirees, obviously.  And private accounts should be run like a conventional 401 (k), complete with approved plans and limnited choices - this will hold down costs and limit some moral hazard issues, at least relative to a privatization model that mimics self-directed IRAs.

I have no idea how the numbers would come together on this.  As to converting Social Security towards an elderly welfare program, I don't have a good sense of whether folks are totally wedded to the fantasy that they have "earned" their benefit.  And maybe the right way to get to that point is through the back-door of means-testing, rather than simply changing the benefits calculation.

LATE UPDATE:  Jaws will drop on the left when they see how far behind the curve the LA TImes is.

Comments

[Tim]

The SS Canary
Posted by: Jon Henke

The Social Security debate is--and will remain for some time--in full swing. While--for reasons well-described by Arnold Kling--I don’t find Paul Krugman’s hysteria compelling, I have to admit that Kevin Drum has been making good headway in convincing me that, while SS may not be completely solvent, it’s a long way from the impending crisis that’s portrayed by supporters of privatization.

[meep]

No one is getting rich on Social Security as it is now. Looking at some numbers I did for a retirement projection study for work, someone with a middling income might see a replacement ratio of about 30% from Social Security. That means Social Security payments are about 30% of your pre-retirement income. This, of course, is using current benefit formulas. Most retirement planners recommend a total replacement ratio of about 70-80%.

Of course, those with very low incomes will have higher replacement ratios, with current benefit formulas. But you're making well below poverty wages to achieve a 70-80% replacement from Social Security alone.

Basically - anybody who relies on Social Security alone for their retirement income is either very poor to begin with, or a fool.

Of course, part of the problem with Social Security "solvency" is that those who make higher incomes tend to live much longer than those who make low incomes. Indeed, the life expectancy gap between white- and blue-collar workers is much larger than between men and women. The AARP won't get behind any plan where benefits are leveled off, but I say tough to them. One way or another, benefits will be reduced. If not explicitly now, then automatically in the future. And those benefit cuts will be across the board. If the AARP wants to protect the payments their current members get, it may be best to allow the benefits of future retirees to be cut...say, by raising the normal retirement age. It's not much in the way of social insurance, as the program was originally, considering that life expectancy at birth now is almost 80 years, and very few people lived past a few years into retirement (indeed, disability used to be the major reason for retirement, and those who enter retirement due to disability tend not to live as long as those who voluntarily retire.)

In any case, those of us in our 30s should depend on no Social Security payments in the future. I'm sure it will exist in some form, but it is folly to use today's benefit formulas to do projections. As I tell everybody, one should save as much as possible as early as possible. If you can, max out IRA or 401(k) contributions. Don't sink your investments all in one stock, and don't put it all in money market. That's just a starting point. But the younger one starts, the better.

[TM]

it’s a long way from the impending crisis that’s portrayed by supporters of privatization.

Well, yes. And it was a long way from crisis when Bill Clinton was screaming "Save Social Security first" and Al Gore was telling us to put it in a lockbox, both in order to forestall Rep momentum for tax cuts.

The Washington game is to create a crisis and deliver a solution - sometimes the crisis is real, and sometimes the solution actually addresses the crisis in question, but not always (and not with Soc Sec.)

[Tim]

The Washington game is to create a crisis and deliver a solution - sometimes the crisis is real, and sometimes the solution actually addresses the crisis in question, but not always (and not with Soc Sec.)

It seems that the crisis is being created in Medicare, with no solution being delivered, and the solution being delivered is for SS, where there is no crisis.

[martin]

So there are free camps of Repubs. Camp A wants to do X. Camp B wants to do Y. Camp Delay wants to do nothing.
I think I a potential compromise.

Meanwhile-why are spending cuts off the table? The Repubs vowed to eliminate the Dept. of Education when they had no power to do so. Now they have the power-oddly as opposed to cutting it-they're throwing 57 billion at it.

Yeah-I've said it before. Yet to get an answer from any pro-Repub commentator.

[martin]

A little garbled there. Still I see a compromise-the Delay way. Not only is Delay actually correct-his method is the least dangerous for risk averse careerists to adopt. So it's a done deal.

Meanwhile could you jawboners tell me (and Delay) where this guy is wrong-from a letter to the LA Times:

"Re "Some Find Strong Pulse in Social Security," Dec. 12: Those seeking radical restructuring of Social Security use the word "bankruptcy" to mean that the day will come when the program's trust fund will be exhausted and its earmarked tax revenue will be insufficient to pay all entitlements. By that definition, the military is bankrupt today. We spend about $500 billion per year on the military, including veterans' payments. Yet the Pentagon has no earmarked tax revenue and no trust fund. If our indefinite entitlement to national defense were treated analogously to Social Security, the Pentagon's "unfunded liability" would be on the order of $15 trillion to $20 trillion — that's trillion! Yet no calls for radical restructuring of the "bankrupt" military are heard."

Daniel J.B. Mitchell
Professor of Management
and Public Policy, UCLA

[meep]

Yup, it is a sham and an excuse for layering on payroll taxes, which have mainly been used for making deficits look smaller in federal budgets. That's it. The "crisis" is that very soon the payroll tax that is the HI portion of FICA (aka the Medicare part) will not cover federal Medicare expenditures. Some time after that the OASDI part of FICA (the Social Security part) will not cover the Social Security payments. Theoretically, these payroll taxes in previous years that were in excess were in a "trust fund", where the federal govt stuck IOUs that they really have no obligation to pay. Supposing that Congress had to honor these obligations, even these would run out in a few decades.

Really, federal taxes are fungible for the most part. It all goes into the Treasury, and Congress spends that and then gets even more money to spend from Treasury bonds and T-bills.

The main problem, though, with both Medicare and Social Security is this: people see it as entitlements, that go to them particularly as individuals. They think there is some level of medical care they will be entitled to at age 65 and beyond, and certain regular payments they are entitled to at retirement age and beyond. However, these entitlements will not be supportable with reasonable tax rates (especially the medical portion) in the indefinite future. At some point, even if taxes are increased, federally-provided benefits will be cut. This can be done now or later.

Privatization does not fix the solvency problem. But it does replace the gauzy future payment promises with assets people really own for themselves, and perhaps the Social Security system can go back to being a social insurance program, as opposed to a very poorly run defined benefit pension. I think privatization is the sugar to go with the medicine of benefit cuts and tax increases, whether these are done via means-testing, removal of the salary cap for OASDI (as it was removed for HI), COLA calculation changes, wage indexing being replaced by something else, etc.

Having an account with a balance is something real, though I don't see how this is any different from a 401(k) with savings being forced upon people. So, in reality, it will be similar to a reduction in payroll taxes, in that part of the payroll tax goes into a retirement account and is still owned by the worker, and this will be used to get people to accept smaller "guaranteed" payments.

[Cecil Turner]

"Yeah-I've said it before. Yet to get an answer from any pro-Repub commentator. "

An answer to what? Are you arguing for getting rid of the Dept of Education? Or merely hoping the GOP will adopt a politically untenable position? ISTM that particular windmill has been tilted at.

"Meanwhile could you jawboners tell me (and Delay) where this guy is wrong-from a letter to the LA Times:"

He's correct in that the separation is artificial (and conveniently ignored when SS was running a surplus). But he's wrong because Social Security, if left unrestructured, will expand to the point where it eats up revenue earmarked for defense--and the rest of the budget as well--while the converse isn't true.

[martin]

Turner-you represent the very hypocrisy I hoped to elicit. Thanks.

Yes-I would like to get rid of the DOE. (Remember Carter only started in 1976) But I'm in good company. The GOP has already adopted this position!

"Untenable" you say. Tell it to the man!

Ronald Reagan made a campaign pledge to eliminate it, and renewed his promise in his first State of the Union (January 1981): "The budget plan I submit to you on Feb. 8 will realize major savings by dismantling the Department of Education."

This is a quote from the 1996 Republican Platform: "The Federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the market place. This is why we will abolish the Department of Education."

So answer two questions for me Turner:

1. Why can't Bush say (and do) in the first SOU of his second term exactly what Reagan did in his first SOU. After all, if Reagan had a Republican Congress-we wouldn't have a DOE.

2. The DOE budget has increased 70% since 2002.70%!!! What has changed since 1996? When did the party decide the agency was in fact constitutional? Were the Republicans being dishonest in the 1996 platform and honest now or vice versa? I'd hate to see how much money they'd throw at it if it was actually constitutional.

As for your point on SS. Sorry me and Delay are right. Assuming it will consume the entire budget-it's not going to consume the entire budget anytime soon. So what's the difference between borrowing then versus borrowing now? Deal with it when it's actually a problem. You want an untenable position? Try cutting SS benefits. I'd waste more words, but thanks to my main man Delay-SS reform is dead anyway.

[martin]

P.S. there is no revenue "earmarked" for defense, btw. That's Mr. Mitchell's point. If in 2010 we have to quadruple the defense budget to deal with psychos-we will have to cut spending, raise taxes, or borrow to pay for that. Sound familiar. It's the same choices we'll have whenver SS comes to its crisis. The govt. can't go bankrupt-can it? So why deal with it now?

P.P.S. I don't mean to irritate you specifically Turner-it's just that you were the only to step up to plate.

[Cecil Turner]

"Turner-you represent the very hypocrisy I hoped to elicit."

Whatever, Martin. As far as hypocrisy goes, it's more than a bit rich to suggest the Republicans are to blame for the Department of Education because they failed to abolish it. If you could manage similar support for getting rid of it among Democrats, it'd have been gone two decades hence. (Or better yet, never established.)

"It's the same choices we'll have whenver SS comes to its crisis."

Umm, no. Under current projections SS will eventually eat up the entire budget, including any practicable level of tax increase. It has to be reformed. Delay is correct that it won't explode in this decade--so politically perhaps it's safe to ignore it. But the problem won't go away, and the more we delay the more it'll eventually cost.

"I don't mean to irritate you specifically Turner"

Then how about using a standard form of address? "Mr Turner," "Cecil," or simply leaving it off would be preferable.

[Joe Mealyus]

"My two cents on reform - raise the minimum benefit a bit, reduce the maximum benefit a lot, pretty much scrap the connection between what people pay and what they get back, and promote Social Security as an income program intended to keep the elderly out of poverty, not to preserve their pre-retirement lifestyle. Higher earners will simply have to save more to live better."

I don't think the implications of this have been thought through. "Scrap[ping] the connection between what people pay and what they get back" is welfarization - why won't this have the perverse (and unintended) effects that plague other welfare programs? (Not to mention unpopularity with voters).

For example, won't people who approach 65 with financial problems suddenly have a huge incentive to reach 65 with as little money as possible? After all, SS will be there to keep them out of poverty.

My own two cents on reform is, improve the connection between what people pay in and get back, raise the retirement age (some), switch to private accounts if that makes the pie (GDP) larger in the future, use the income tax (and EITC) for "progressive" ends - raise the marginal rates on the wealthy again.

There are good reasons why we should force people to save for their retirement - like we force them to school their kids, or maintain their property. They are being forced to not be unnecessary burdens on everyone else. Forcing people to save for their retirement should be forcing people to save for *their* retirement, once that's gone I think SS should be scrapped and the whole thing done with the income tax.

[martin]

Mr. Turner-you must admit Republican words fail to match Republican actions. I know it's naive to expect people to keep their promises or even mean what they say, but one can always hope.

The point remains, however. Even if they can't muster any of Reagan's courage and actually propose abolishing the damn thing-do they really have to increase its budget by 70% in 3 years?

Such actions makes your statement that SS will eat up the entire budget somewhat laughable. It appears you entertain a quaint notion that the federal budget has some sort of limit.

[Aaron]

Bah Humbug!

The federal government can convert unused barracks and federal prisons that will be empty in the future to become "poor houses" for anyone who doesn't have enough savings.

Expect the cost fo high quality, hand made quilts to plummet: "Good news! Arts & Craft time has been extended for 4 hours!"

Bring out the stick to make the slackers save more.

Maybe we can also tax all Oldies compilaton CDs to pay for the Boomers.

[TM]

Mr. Turner, it's great to have you back.

And martin, on the subject of the DOE - if Bush had campaigned in 2000 to eliminate it, right now we would be discussing who might stay on for Gore's second term.

Or if, having campaigned on No Child LeftBehind, Bushhad turned around and tied to eliminate the DOE, right now we would be wondering who Kerry might nominate to the Supreme Court.

I have some very conservative friends who won't vote Republican because, althought theythink the Reps are better than the Dems on most issues, the Reps aren't good enough. Whatever - the Dems have the Nader voters to worry about.

For the rest of us, declining to commit political suicide is not "hypocrisy", and I don't think you need to be directing that charge at Mr. Turner specifically, or the Evil Reps generally.

[Cecil Turner]

"Mr. Turner-you must admit Republican words fail to match Republican actions."

Martin, you can no more treat the Republicans as a monolithic bloc than you can Democrats. The "Republican words," have been gone from the platform for nearly a decade. (As to why, yes, it's political--the last champion of that cause was Newt Gingrich--and you can see where it got him.) Here's how the platform shift was covered at the time:

Schieffer explained in his subsequent CBS Evening News story: "This year's draft party platform has a more moderate tone. It's much friendlier toward immigrants. Gone is the demand to make English the official language. Gone are the harsh calls to eliminate the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts." [emphasis added]

The current increases are a result of much-vaunted "bipartisanship," and the early attempt by the Administration to be inclusive of folks like Ted Kennedy (who is dismayed at the paltry size of the increase), and whose pronouncements on the issue run along these lines:

"Two years after the signing of the law, the Republican Congress and the Bush Administration have created a $7.5 billion shortfall in public school funds. Nearly five million children in schools across the country are being left behind. That is the truth the Administration is trying to hide, and no amount of accounting tricks or Presidential photo opportunities in schools can hide it."

If you want to proffer this as a cautionary tale on the perils of cooperating with Democrats, I can see the point. If, however, you're serious about defunding the Department of Education, the finger might more profitably be directed toward the usual suspects.

"It appears you entertain a quaint notion that the federal budget has some sort of limit."

Of course it does. At some point (hard to nail down precisely, but certainly less than 40-some percent of GDP) it will cause a recession leading to a downward spiral of both the economy and government revenue. (Which is actually a rather good example of a limit in the mathematical sense.) Of course, long before we got there we'd have widespread noncompliance, evasion, cheating . . . and eventually, "regime change."

"Mr. Turner, it's great to have you back."

Thanks, TM. Unfortunately temporary, as frequent absences are an occupational hazard.

[deona]

"MORE: My two cents on reform ..."

BY JOVE, TOM, I THINK YOU'VE GOT IT!!!

I've said elsewhere that I'm hoping that the blogosphere will do for Social Security what it did for CBS and Dan Rather. You just took a MAJOR step with those last four paragraphs!

Do you take donations? Put up a facility on your site to do so and I will poke money into it. In the fourteen years I've been trying (in my insignificant ways) to unmask the actual realities of SS, I've got a small army of folks (hell, there may be almost 20! ) who will support you, too.

I've financially supported very few political causes with significant (for me) amounts of my money, but I'm so convinced that you're EXACTLY right on, that I'm gonna do whatever I can to bring attention to this blog.

Social Security is and has been so horribly misrepresented for GENERATIONS that the false mindset in the minds of just about everybody over 14 years old (especially most mindless politicians who only understand what their staffs tell them -- until there's a huge public uproar), has precipitated all these cockamamie notions based on false understanding and information, and which ignore the drastic effects those proposals will have on the general fund, and how the poorest retirees risk the most damage if they're implemented.

Whoever contributes to bringing the hard, cold realities to this issue in such a way that we avoid the disasters some of these other idea will cause will be true heroes and patriots!

God, I hope you keep it up.

[martin]

TM and Mr. Turner-I am confused. TM-you contend Bush-unlike Reagan-would have lost if he campaigned on eliminating the DOE? And Mr. Turner-you contend that the demise of Gingrich was due to his ideas and not his persona?

If you fellows are correct-how do you square that with the idea that the American public is ready to get behind cutting SS benefits, and then reward those legislators who do. If people would have voted for Gore rather than have the DOE bureaucracy slashed-why would they support a slash in their own benefits?

Delay thinks they won't-that's why he doesn't want to touch it. I think they won't either. That's why those Republicans who really are in touch with reality will in the end do nothing.

So here we are with our dream of Republican control realized and we're going to spend a minimum of 500 billion in the next decade on just one grotesque useless alphabetical tentacle of the federal beast?

Wasn't it Bush's favorite philosopher who said something like what good does it do a man to gain a kingdom but lose his soul?

[Cecil Turner]

"Mr. Turner-you contend that the demise of Gingrich was due to his ideas and not his persona?"

Not exactly. I contend Gingrich lost because the left successfully caricatured him as a heartless b****** (helped, in no small measure, by unfair portrayals of his various positions, including: "harsh calls to eliminate the Department of Education . . ."; and "contract on America").

"how do you square that with the idea that the American public is ready to get behind cutting SS benefits"

They clearly aren't ready. And though even a casual glance at the numbers demonstrates a system that can't continue on its current path, there's no political stomach for obviously needed reform. (And a whole lot of demagoguery, mostly from the left, squandering the last good opportunity for an easy fix.)

"So here we are with our dream of Republican control realized and we're going to spend a minimum of 500 billion in the next decade on just one grotesque useless alphabetical tentacle of the federal beast?"

Or you could eliminate it, and with the decade's worth of savings, almost manage to fund one year of SS. Color me unimpressed with the logic suggesting education reform is a more pressing concern.

[martin]

Well actually I was thinking more of transition costs-which according to TM are pegged at 2 trillion. So yes -just a decade of non-DOE funding would cut borrowing needs by a minimum of a quarter. If you want to sniff at that, go ahead.

I'm harping on DOE as just one example, btw. We can add on last years $90 billion farm bill for example. And Medicare, you say? Pretty soon we'll be talking real money.

Finally, I was aware of the Republican flip-flop in the Platform re: DOE (You might say they were opposed to the $57 billion before they were for it) I hoped that once in power they might revert to their roots, but it wasn't a dye job, alas, it was plastic surgery.

[TM]

I have no problem loathing the farm bill (and that statement is just about time- and bill-independent).

As to the Bush 2000 campaign and the question of whether Bush would have lost if he had campaigned to eliminate the DOE, well, I could find plenty of folks to say he did lose.

Setting that aside, the race was surely close; if Karl Rove figured there were more votes to be had with a message of Compassionate Conservatism and No Child LeftBehind, well, who am I to dispute his political wisdom?

As to the notion that Reps are ready to cut benefits and reap the political rewards, I am not sure who believes that. The Fred Barnes article suggests there is a lot of reluctance on the Rep side.

I am not quite sure how Bush can make a big push for SS reform and walk away with nothing, but the DeLay do-nothing school may yet carry the day. Bush becomes an early lame duck, I guess.

Hmm, or SS reform becomes the stalking goat for tax reform - Bush insists that Reps get behind that in exchange for his dropping SS reform. Maybe...

[Cecil Turner]

"So yes -just a decade of non-DOE funding would cut borrowing needs by a minimum of a quarter. If you want to sniff at that, go ahead."

Martin, I'm not sure how seriously to take this position. You correctly identified the political difficulty in SS reform--surely you're not arguing that simultaneous elimination of the DOE is more feasible? And again, the problem with that plan is resistance among Democrats, not Republicans (who would probably embrace such a scheme, if they thought it had a snowball's chance in Hell of passing--but it doesn't).

"I hoped that once in power they might revert to their roots, but it wasn't a dye job, alas, it was plastic surgery."

Again, I'm having a hard time with this. However bad the Republicans might be on these issues, the Democrats are demonstrably worse. And judging from your previous comments, I can't believe you're honestly suggesting we adopt the old Republican platform, but are just using it as a handy bat to club the GOP. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, since if you were actually promoting those positions, the last thing you'd want is to elect more Democrats.

[martin]

Well Cecil, in my roundabout unfocused way, what it biols down to is I read a series of cogent well reasoned pieces on SS reform by TM.

Poor sap, I thought. He actually thinks the Repubs might deal with the funding crisis (Remember- privatization and solvency are separate issues).

He's like me when I really did honestly sincerely believe the Republicans would shrink the government. Sucker. Indeed, despite increasing Republican numbers, there are actually less budget hawks in Congress now than 5-6 years ago.

So when I saw that Delay himself is opposed to any action on SS, well that seals it-any reform is DOA. Delay doesn't even have the decency to kill it in a conference committee-he takes a very public preemptive strike. It's over.

Point being, yes if we can't kill the DOE-which started in 1976 and has almost no interaction with your average American, how can we possibly touch SS-which started in 1934(?) and directly impacts everyone? We can't. Words are futile. Let's get back to dealing with Iraq.

[Cecil Turner]

"Point being, yes if we can't kill the DOE-which started in 1976 and has almost no interaction with your average American, how can we possibly touch SS-which started in 1934(?) and directly impacts everyone?"

Broadly, I agree. Though I expect the issue to be a bit closer than you apparently do, and believe it might actually produce something positive. Which is worth pursuing, since an iterative process is probably the best we can hope for at this point.

I find your earlier statements about Republican hypocrisy considerably less persuasive. Claiming the GOP failure to resurrect a losing plank from the 1996 platform is evidence of moral turpitude, while near unanimous support for the same programs among Democrats (who'd prefer even higher spending levels) reflects moral rectitude and high-mindedness is just a bit hard to credit.