I don’t even bother to read our friend Stefan Sound Politics much anymore unless somebody of substance who occasionally gets attributions wrong, like David Postman points me in that direction. Of course, when I do link on over to read what Stefan Sound Politics has to say, I’m constantly reminded why I rarely bother to read him in the first place.
Stefan Eric Earling accuses Democrats of being “unserious” about Social Security reform, and yet he throws out a paragraph like this:
They continue to claim the so-called Social Security Trust Fund means everything will be fine for decades. Wrong. The special T-Bonds in the Trust Fund are simply an IOU from one government account to another. They’re an IOU that will no doubt be honored, but they’re not an asset you can cash at the bank or sell on the bond market like a regular-issue US Treasury Bond. Redeeming the special bonds means raising taxes or cutting spending to pay for them. Even the MSM is starting to understand that.
So… um, what you are telling us Stefan Eric, is that our government won’t be able to afford to pay back the trillions of dollars it has borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund without raising taxes or cutting spending to pay for it, right?
Hmm.
So then, it isn’t really Social Security that’s heading towards insolvency due to incredibly shortsighted, irresponsible and unserious fiscal policy, but rather, the federal government.
Stefan Eric and the Republicans aren’t trying to fix Social Security. No, they’re trying to use Social Security “reform” to cover up the mess left behind by the most fiscally irresponsible administration in US history. If President Bush and the GOP congressional leadership hadn’t turned record budget surpluses into record budget deficits, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Blaming this looming budget crisis on Social Security is nothing but creative accounting.
People like Stefan Eric see privatization as a twofer: they get to dismantle the crowning achievement of the New Deal while covering up the financial disaster created by their party’s failed policies at home and abroad. And the rhetoric they employ is dishonest as usual.
If Stefan Eric wants a “substantive national debate” let’s have one on our current fiscal crisis, and figure out how we’re going to pay for this administration’s policies and programs instead of passing the cost off to future generations. Are we really at war? Then let’s raise taxes to pay for this war the way we have all previous wars, or dramatically cut services elsewhere, forcing our elected officials to pay the inevitable political price. Let the Republicans tell Americans that we can’t afford things like education, health care or even Social Security at home, because we have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars a year fighting “The Long War” in Iraq.
Let’s have that debate, Stefan Eric. But don’t tell me Democrats are “unserious” about Social Security while Republicans blithely run up the largest budget and balance of trade deficits in US history.
UPDATE:
Well, so much for trusting “somebody of substance like David Postman.” Postman wrote:
Stefan Sharkansky says “Cantwell’s social security stance hurts my head.”
So I read the post on (u)SP, but didn’t bother reading the byline. Turns out it wasn’t written by Stefan after all, it was written by Eric Earling. (Whoever he is.) Doesn’t change my point, but I’ve updated the post accordingly.