Well, let's put the "living beyond our means" issue on a side table since it raises a host of other issues. And let's focus on the social security issue, as you've done, though you threw the proverbial kitchen sink at the issue by raising the "living beyond our means" notion.
On social security, the 2% reduction in the payment is a miniscule amount and will be funded from the general fund. Both those statements are part of the same issue. As I understand your objection, that further confuses the distinctions between those two funds. Given, however, that the amounts are small, I don't see how it can confuse them even further. Those pundits who wish to argue social security is in good shape account for the two separately; those who wish to argue it's not, fuse the two. Krugman talks about this endlessly and I've seen nothing that undermines his point here. Adding this drop in the bucket won't make that confusion more or less.
Our debt problems are not social security derived. Most recently they are derived from the all too familiar sources--two unfunded wars, an unfunded medicare drug program, a massive tax cut for the wealthy, and lower revenues from the economic instability of the past three years (all, incidentally, legacy of the Bush years). All of that needs to be said before we enter into discussions of "living beyond our means," because it changes the frames of those conversations.
Incidentally, any serious history of the sources of our contemporary debt problems will start and end with that list (and supplements) and will note just how bad the GWB presidency was on this score. |
