Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Social Security

6 Comments

…and the Democrats’ irresponsibility:

So, if we’re to believe Team Obama, the 2011 version of Jack Lew, and Harry Reid — who doesn’t see a need to deal with Social Security for 20 years — a government whose nonpublic debt is projected to be within a whisker of what many experts believe is the code-red level of 90% of GDP in 10 years is automatically going to be able to continue to fund Social Security’s cash deficits for the next 26 years. Horse manure.

These people know the truth, and they’re deliberately dodging it. They’re cynically hoping to ride a wave of ginned-up opposition to any and all entitlement reform in hopes of getting across the finish line in the 2012 elections. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a more cynical strategy on a problem so important in my lifetime.

I hope they fail.

Me, too. But it’s who they are. It’s what they do.

6 thoughts on “Social Security”

  1. It’s legitimate to claim that Social Security is self-financing due to the amount Treasury owes the “trust fund” IF we are willing to slash the rest of federal spending to exactly compensate for the SS deficit. That is, slash it in addition to whatever non-SS related spending cuts we make.

    I’m sure the Dems will agree to that.

  2. Somewhat related, here’s a great quote from Wretchard at the Belmont Club:

    Taken together, Jay Cost’s observation about deficits and the Democratic strategy set up an interesting argument. The more the President wrecks the economy, the greater the grassroots revolt becomes. But the hotter the grassroots fire rages, the less able the Republican Party becomes to carry the standard of rebellion and the more it is split. The fatal flaw of the Republicans is to be so much like the Democrats they cannot join the rebels. The fatal flaw of the rebels is that no third party can win the general election. Hence, the optimum Democratic strategy is to keep screwing things up because it will always work in their favor unless things collapse completely, which of course, will never happen.

    Needless to say, that last bit was tongue-in-cheek.

  3. While no analogy is perfect, here’s what comes to mind.

    Suppose you were the skipper of a loaded oil tanker. It’s massive and ponderous. Your radar detects a hazard at the limits of its range and you need to change course to avoid hitting it. If you act promptly, you only have to change your course by a degree or so to avoid the impact. Instead, you continue on. Miles later, the hazard is still there but you’re much closer. It’ll take a bigger course change to avoid the obstacle but you do nothing. Now the hazard is less than a mile away and you’re definitely on a collision course. You finally decide to act by taking drastic actions but the momentum of the ship is hard to change. If you’re lucky, your radical actions might avoid the collision but if you’d acted promptly when the hazard was first identified, the corrective actions would’ve been much easier and the collision would’ve never happened.

    The problems with Social Security (and other large entitlement programs) were identified long ago. Political “leaders” did nothing and used demogogary against anyone who pointed out the problems. We’re appoaching the point where collision with fiscal reality is imminent and Reid wants to wait for another 20 freaking years to do anything? Of course he does. By then, he’ll almost certainly be dead and won’t have to face the consequences of his political malpractice. Long before 20 years passes, I’m sure that the corrections we’ll need to make will be far more extreme than what would’ve been required 10 years ago or even today.

  4. LarryJ, in 20 years the Boomers will mostly have retired. Reid is delusional if he thinks it will take that long. Not only is your oil tanker not turning, it is accelerating.

  5. You’re right. Reid’s stupid statement is equivalent to the tanker captain yelling “Ramming Speed!”

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