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01/17/2005 Archived Entry: "Reform Social Security, Change Politics"

Posted by antle @ 05:05 PM EST [Link]

REFORM SOCIAL SECURITY, CHANGE POLITICS: There are aspects of this Jonathan Rauch column with which I'd quibble - I think the potential economic payoffs of privatization are potentially greater than he assumes and Social Security's financial problems more serious, to the point where we should cease relying on payroll tax hikes every 15 to 20 years to keep it propped up - but I think his basic point about the best reason for free-market entitlement reform is sound.

Conservatives used to speak derisively of liberal social engineering. The attempt to create private Social Security accounts is, so to speak, conservative social counter-engineering. Government should help provide for unforeseeable contingencies: tsunamis, unemployment, open-heart surgery. But if there is one event in all of human life that is wholly foreseeable, it is the advent of old age. Why, then, shouldn't people save for their own retirement, instead of relying on welfare from the government—which is what Social Security, as currently constituted, really is?

Read on.