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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (90294)	12/12/2004 5:08:58 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793739

Another Liberal argument on SS from a good blogger. Wait And See By Matthew Yglesias blog Krugman's latest, though a very strong effort within the current Social Security frame, reminds me to point out that I don't think this frame is a good one for liberals. Arguments about the size of the "trust fund" and its sustainability decades hence only re-enforce the truly pernicious notion here that an infinite (or, for all intents and purposes near-infinite) time horizon is a good way to think about this issue. The reality is that we're living in the year 2005. The federal government budgets itself on an annual basis. I happen to think that's a bad idea and we should use a longer planning cycle. But since a new congress comes in every two years, everyone understands that it would be nonsensical for the congress taking office in 2005 to pretend it can make commitments about what congress will do in 2011. So a two-year appropriations cycle would, realistically, be the longest feasible approach. With Social Security, though, we're being asked to plan on a 75 year time horizon. This is just silly. There's no financial problem now. Whether or not a problem ever arises and what the nature of that problem is depends in large part on something (productivity growth in the decades to come) that no one has any idea how to predict. So why try to predict it? Why not treat Social Security like everything else, something to be budgeted for on a short time-horizon so that we can recalibrate as the situation changes and new information comes to light. If it does, in fact, appear to be true in the year 2012 or 2022 or 2042 that making the numbers balance requires either a change to the benefit formula or a change in the tax rate, then that would be an excellent time to change them. Why try to make guesses now? Shift to another large federal program -- the Department of Defense. How much do you think we should spend on the Army in 2056 and are current income tax receipts compatible with spending that much money? Obviously, it's a stupid question. No one would even think to ask it. They'll figure it out in the 2050s.