The myth of “transition costs” in Social Security choice
I’ve been making the point that letting people opt out of Social Security is “self-financing” if done right. Letting Ms. Smith move $100 of her payroll taxes into her own savings plan is a break-even proposition for the federal government if she also signs away just enough future benefits to retire the debt that the government incurs replacing her $100. (Because Ms. Smith’s payroll taxes are used to pay current retirees, the government needs replacement cash to continue paying current retirees). Namely, Smith signs away her claim to future payment of $100 plus interest, with the real interest rate she "pays" set equal to the Treasury’s real borrowing rate. The transitional debt then requires for no additional taxes or benefit cuts. Opponents of Social Security reform who cite “trillions of dollars of borrowing costs” as a fiscal irreponsibility are being frightened by a phantom: there is no additional cost to taxpayers.
Here’s another way to make the same point, courtesy of 2004 Nobel laureate Ed Prescott. The debt incurred to replace Ms. Smith’s payroll taxes, because it matches the cut in the government’s obligation to pay her future benefits, does not even represent new debt. It merely swaps one debt for another. Instead of owing Ms. Smith $100 plus interest, the government owes a bondholder exactly the same amount.
"There are no transition costs," Prescott said at the Cato Institute Feb, 9. "Re-labeling debt is not a cost."
Prescott added that the federal government is being less than honest when it calls the money it has borrowed from current FICA taxpayers to pay retired workers’ benefits an asset rather than a liability.
"Firms are required to list pension fund liabilities," Prescott stressed. "I think the federal government should as well."
Hat tip to Sean Hackbarth at The American Mind.
Now, to be precise, it is not necessarily a mere “re-labeling” to substitute full-faith-and-credit Treasury debt for legally-non-binding Social Security obligations. The Treasury debt is legally more secure (as would be Ms. Smith’s personal retirement account balance), not subject to arbitrary reduction via Congressional changes in the payment schedule. But you will be hard-pressed to find an advocate of the Social Security status quo who will call it a virtue of the current system that it cleverly gives Congress the option to cut future payments. For those who regard the currently promised level of benefits to future retirees as a sacrosanct obligation, just like the Treasury’s obligation to repay its bonds, the transition-to-choice debt swap really is a mere re-labeling.
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Reply to Professor Bainbridge on Social Security
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