Mickey Kaus - Discussing Social Security, Paul Krugman writes:
"To avert the danger of future cuts in benefits, Mr. Bush wants us to commit now to, um, future cuts in benefits.
This accomplishes nothing, except, possibly, to ensure that benefit cuts take place even if they aren't necessary."
But Bush isn't proposing a take-it-or-leave-it package. He's calling for a negotiation, in which the Democrats could soften the impact of his proposal by substituting some revenue increases for his proposed benefit cuts. You don't like the Full-Pozen "progressive indexing" scheme? Then do a part-Pozen! Make up the difference by raising the cap on payroll taxes--an option Bush has pointedly left open. ... The question of the moment is whether the Democrats should publicly even enter into such bargaining--whether Bush's plan is, as Krugman puts it, "worth discussing." Krugman's argument appears to be that they shouldn't negotiate because Bush's starting position is unacceptable. It usually is in negotiations! ... P.S.: If I were a Democrat who worried only about guaranteeing the future of a universal Social Security system, I'd be very tempted to cut a deal with Bush now. Democrats have a huge amount of bargaining leverage to work with, remember, in part because Bush is on the verge of an embarrassing loss and in part because voters are unlikely to be comfortable with any compromise unless it's blessed by the party of Social Security's traditional defenders. ... I'm against negotiating precisely because I worry that a deal negotiated now will in fact succeed at cementing in place something like the current, expensive Social Security benefit structure for decades to come. slate.msn.com |
