There's one honest line in Robert Samuelson's latest column calling for cuts in Social Security and Medicare. It's the line where he says "...I've written all this before..."
Otherwise...not so much.
Here's Samuelson:
Nancy Pelosi promises to "build a better future for all of America's children." If she were serious, she would back cuts in Social Security and Medicare.Social Security and Medicare. See what's wrong with that?
This is one of those zombie arguments that keeps coming back no matter how many times you kill it. I'll let Dean Baker respond (from last August, but still pertinent):
There are modest and manageable increases in projected Social Security spending due to the aging of the population. There are unmanageable projected increases in Medicare and Medicaid expenditures due to a projected explosion in health care costs....Honest people respond to these projections by examining ways to prevent the explosion in health care costs. Less honest people talk about the need to cut entitlement spending, including Social Security.Health care costs: not mentioned in Samuelson's column.
That's not the full extent of Samuelson's dishonesty. He repeatedly harps on the need to cut benefits, but is dismissive about the option of raising taxes instead (e.g., making payroll taxes less regressive by eliminating the earnings cap). He takes a plague-on-both-your-houses tone that grossly misstates relative culpability (the Democrats didn't get us into this mess) while giving his views a veneer of moderation (he's firmly in the right-wing camp on this issue).
And most galling of all, he chastizes Clinton for not being honest about the problem--for "falsely denouncing the Republicans for attempting to 'destroy' Medicare." What Samuelson doesn't mention is that Clinton's budget surpluses were meant to ensure the long-term stability of Social Security...and they would have, if Bush hadn't squandered them on free money for the ultrawealthy. Or, for that matter, if the Republicans in Congress hadn't gone on a six-year drunken spending binge (including, of course, a vastly expensive prescription drug 'benefit' that does more for the drug companies than for seniors). Either way, the problem was solved until the Republicans blew it.
[That's all, folks]
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