Hacktackular! Samuelson on Social Security

by Bruce Webb

The following piece is so bad that I won’t even put any of it above the fold, nor will I waste my time critiquing it. But people should know that the battle over Social Security is not over, crap like this is routinely delivered via our major media voices.

Robert Samuelson in Newsweek: Let Them Go Bankrupt, Soon
Solving Social Security and Medicare

Have at it, I just don’t have the heart to take this stale argument on yet again. And if any of you Angry Bears has better plans for the weekend certainly don’t drop them for this. I just wanted to have him on record.

When the trustees of Social Security and Medicare recently reported on the economic outlook for these programs, the news coverage was universally glum. The recession had made everything worse. Social Security, Medicare face insolvency sooner, headlined The Wall Street Journal. Actually, these reports were good news. Better would have been Social Security, Medicare risk bankruptcy in 2010.

It’s increasingly obvious that Congress and the president (regardless of which party is in power) will deal with the political stink bomb of an aging society only if forced. And the most plausible means of compulsion would be for Social Security and Medicare to go bankrupt: trust funds run dry; promised benefits exceed dedicated payroll taxes. The sooner this happens, the better. (cont)

It only gets worse from there. One final note, if this sounds vaguely Leninist that is because it is.