Paul Krugman's relentless and dishonest opposition to Social Security reform is even beginning to disgust fellow liberals. Here's liberal Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein in an online q-and-a:
Fairfax, VA: Do you agree with Paul Krugman's assertion that the President's recent plan to cut social security benefits actually falls mostly on the middle class and not the wealthiest?
Steven Pearlstein: No, it was very intellectually dishonest. All he was really saying is that, for rich people, Social Security benefits are a small part of their post retirement income. In truth, any cut in benefit will fall mostly on the middle class because the middle class gets most of the benefits. Its sophistry, really. And like the Dems, Krugman assumes in his analysis that the money will be there to pay 100 percent of future benefits, which cannot be assumed. That's why we're having this conversation in the first place. I have in front of me an analsys which suggests that the decline in the replacement rate for a typical American household under "progressive" indexation will be about the same as the decline in replacement rate if nothing is done to Social Security and benefits increases are "cut" simply to reflect the amount of money available.
And it's not just Krugman. Here's a Pearlstein column telling the Democrats that they'd better come up with something better to say on Social Security than "no."
Social Security is a case in point. By staying unified, Democrats have pushed back an attempt to partially privatize a government social program that, more than any other, defines what they are about. They also got the president to agree to increase the amount of income subject to the payroll tax as well as a progressive scheme for slowing the growth in future benefits.
You might think, therefore, that this would be the ideal time for a minority party to take the lead with its own plan to ensure solvency of this popular program, based on those and other progressive principles. Guess again. The Washington Democrats have decided, instead, to press their advantage by demanding that the president agree to trade all consideration of private accounts, as well as his income tax cuts, plus one Supreme Court justice to be named later, before they will even pull up to the negotiating table. Apparently, they'd rather have an issue to demagogue than actually rescue a vital program.
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