Tuesday, December 07, 2004
The Myth Social Security Insolvency
Inventing a Crisis
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 7, 2004
"Privatizing Social Security - replacing the current system, in whole or in part, with personal investment accounts - won't do anything to strengthen the system's finances. If anything, it will make things worse. Nonetheless, the politics of privatization depend crucially on convincing the public that the system is in imminent danger of collapse, that we must destroy Social Security in order to save it."
"It's true that the federal government as a whole faces a very large financial shortfall. That shortfall, however, has much more to do with tax cuts - cuts that Mr. Bush nonetheless insists on making permanent - than it does with Social Security."
"But since the politics of privatization depend on convincing the public that there is a Social Security crisis, the privatizers have done their best to invent one."
Read the complete column, as Krugman debunks the rights claims of social security insolvency with a clarity that only he can. You may need to sign up for an account, but what the hell, it's free.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/opinion/07krugman.html?oref=login&hp
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 7, 2004
"Privatizing Social Security - replacing the current system, in whole or in part, with personal investment accounts - won't do anything to strengthen the system's finances. If anything, it will make things worse. Nonetheless, the politics of privatization depend crucially on convincing the public that the system is in imminent danger of collapse, that we must destroy Social Security in order to save it."
"It's true that the federal government as a whole faces a very large financial shortfall. That shortfall, however, has much more to do with tax cuts - cuts that Mr. Bush nonetheless insists on making permanent - than it does with Social Security."
"But since the politics of privatization depend on convincing the public that there is a Social Security crisis, the privatizers have done their best to invent one."
Read the complete column, as Krugman debunks the rights claims of social security insolvency with a clarity that only he can. You may need to sign up for an account, but what the hell, it's free.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/opinion/07krugman.html?oref=login&hp
