Luskin and the Lock Box

Donald Luskin wants you to believe that Al Gore supports George Bush’s privatization proposal:

There’s a way that the advocates of reform could easily make this case. All they have to do is borrow a famous buzzword from none other than Al Gore. No, I’m not kidding. The fact is that personal accounts are nothing less than a Social Security lockbox.

If you follow his link to the October 3, 2000 debate, you will see what Gore really said:

I will balance the budget every year. I will pay down the national debt. I will put Medicare and Social Security in a lockbox and protect them…I think we need to put Medicare and Social Security in a lockbox. The governor will not put Medicare in a lockbox. I don’t think it should be used as a piggy bank for other programs. I think it needs to be moved out of the budget and protected. I’ll veto anything that takes money out of Social Security or Medicare for anything other than Social Security or Medicare.

What does this mean? It appears to mean the same thing that Bill Clinton was implying when he said let’s save Social Security first – to which fiscally responsible Speaker Gingrich wildy applauded. No, neither Clinton nor Gore was endorsing the Bush carve-outs even if the Luskinites tell you otherwise.

And Luskin cannot pretend that Bush and Speaker Hastert have not blown the efforts of Clinton, Gingrich, and Gore to avoid massive General Funds, which may require stealing from the Trust Funds as Luskin writes:

That means, effectively, that the Trust Funds get an IOU from the general fund of the government and the government gets to spend the money.

The “government” that Luskin refers to is the Bush Administration that Luskin supports. Let’s do something that the Luskinites never do – be honest about other things Gore siad in the 2004 campaign, such as “do more for you” and a tax cut, too. Senator Kerry had the same msessage confusion during the 2004 campaign. But the Bush Administration aided by Speaker Hastert has delivered on making sure that the General Fund must be subsidized by raiding the lock box big time.

I could say that the Luskinite campaign for the Bush Social Security deform is based on a parade of lies as I could say the earth is round. But both statements are obvious.