Slam Dunk

That Magic Moment

It's been a good day for the New York Times. Paul Krugman has a good look, above, at the similarities between the way the Bush Administration sold the Iraq war and its current manufacturing of a Social Security "crisis." In it, he references a great piece from this weekend's NYT Magazine in which Roger Lowenstein provides a detailed history of the program and an explanation of its actual condition and prospects for the future. The bottom line, anyone who reads the article would conclude, is that the crisis is a political one, not one based on the reality of the program. Bush is trying to change the nature of Social Security from something in which I believe deeply--the idea that those who work should be guaranteed a baseline level of comfort in their retirement no matter what happens--to a fundamentally different system in which the benefits and misfortunes created by capitalism flow haphazardly to different people based on factors well outside their control. Where's Bill Clinton when you need him?

In light of all of this, and the desperate need to stop Bush from achieving his goals, David Brooks provides an interesting--and deeply flawed--rendering of the current plight of the Democrats. He posits that Democrats are in trouble because the American people disagree with the party on the issues. I'm willing to bet that on this particular issue, which is the lynchpin of his column, he's dead wrong. Ask the American people if they believe that those who work hard and play by the rules should be guaranteed a comfortable retirement, and if they believe that ensuring that retirement should be the job of government, and listen to the chorus of "yes" echo from red and blue states alike. If we were having that debate, discussing the merits of the current Social Security plan and alternative schemes, I have no doubt the American people would oppose Bush. Indeed, even a subterfuge campaign by Bush isn't helping his numbers: 55 percent of American disapprove of his handling of Social Security. Will he listen? Will he talk honestly about the real problem--the deficit his tax cuts have created--rather than focusing on boogeymen fifty years down the road? And isn't it ironic that a president who can't be troubled to think about the environmental consequences of his policies ten years down the road is obsessed with a trust fund that is projected to last well into the 2040s before it runs into problems?