13 May 2005
Social Security not in peril as President Bush suggests

Oh, boy! Where do I start with this?

First off, I agree with the general conclusions that this particular economist reached on this particular issue. Social Security is not in crisis, and it certainly doesn't need the kind of drastic overhaul that Dubya is proposing. But ...

First he says that Social Security is not "unsustainable", then he says we can't sustain it past 2052. Which is it? Because if we can't sustain it in it's current form for more than 47 years, decades though it may be, it is unsustainable.

I wonder if his answer would be as glib if we knew that an asteroid would impact the United States in 2052? Would he propose waiting until 2051 to do anything about it?

It's this kind of thinking that gets us into trouble all the time: Washington's motto seems to be "Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?" In fact, there are times I believe that politicians don't even want to think about issues, much less act on them, until the day after tomorrow, assuming that tomorrow is an election day!

And it's not just a malaise of our political establishment: business has got it bad, too. Even Stalin had 5 year plans, whereas most corporate boards and CEO's these days can't seem to see beyond the next fiscal quarter.

Putting off action, procrastinating, almost insures that the actions eventually taken will be taken under duress, and will probably not be the optimal course we would have chosen had we taken the requisite time to think about it.

And that's the real problem with Social Security.

Social Security is not "in crisis," "unsustainable," or even "bankrupt" words that President George W. Bush has used to rally support behind his campaign to alter the retirement and insurance program -- according to an article by a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Factoring in the huge annual surpluses currently collected by Social Security, general taxpayer revenues would not be needed to fund Social Security benefits until 2052, or 47 years from now. Given that decades-long time frame, "a flip answer to the description of a Social Security 'crisis' would be, 'Who cares?'" Richard L. Kaplan, an expert on federal taxes and retirement benefits, wrote in the April issue of ElderLaw Report, the leading monthly publication for practicing elder law lawyers.

(link) [Science Blog]

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