It starts:
The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons are now trying another bum's rush. If they succeed, we will do nothing about the real fiscal threat and will instead dismantle Social Security, a program that is in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government.
He explains how the claim that Social Security, is facing an imminent crisis is "simply false" because SS has it's own independent budget which has a large and growing trust.
As Krugman explains:
There are only two things that could endanger Social Security's ability to pay benefits before the trust fund runs out. One would be a fiscal crisis that led the U.S. to default on all its debts. The other would be legislation specifically repudiating the general fund's debts to retirees.
That is, we can't have a Social Security crisis without a general fiscal crisis - unless Congress declares that debts to foreign bondholders must be honored, but that promises to older Americans, who have spent most of their working lives paying extra payroll taxes to build up the trust fund, don't count.
Krugman promises to also explain in upcoming weeks how privatization will, in his words, "fatally undermine" Social Security so keep you eye on the Times.
His full editorial can be found HERE.
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