Samuelson: None So Blind

Because Robert J. Samuelson's column, "Young Voters, Get Mad" is desperately in need of one. Plus some basic honesty. His column begins:

To: Voters Under 35

Subject: Your Future

Recommendation: Get Angry

You're being played for chumps. Barack Obama and John McCain want your votes, but they're ignoring your interests. You face a heavily mortgaged future. You'll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers. The needed federal tax increase might total 50 percent over the next 25 years.

"Social Security and Medicare." If there's one phrase that is a dead tipoff that a 'centrist' pundit is lying to you, that's it. Conflating Medicare and Social Security as fiscal problems is like lumping together North Korea and, who knows, maybe Monaco as foreign-policy problems.

Social Security is a non-problem. The trust fund whose purpose is to insure the baby boomers is currently expected to run out in 2049, when most of them will be dead anyway, and when it does, the revenue stream from the existing payroll tax will pay for benefits that are as good as beneficiaries get today.

Here's what to do about Social Security: check back in 10 years to make sure any problems are still decades away. And in the meantime, deal with pressing challenges like climate change, health care, jobs, the economy, education - real stuff.

There are three basic ways of reducing the costs of Social Security and Medicare: increase eligibility ages; trim benefits; and require recipients to pay more for their Medicare benefits (higher premiums, co-payments or deductibles). In his talk, Obama effectively rejected all three.

And good on him. Medicare is a problem, because in America, health care costs for everybody keep on going up. But that's unique to America, among the advanced democracies.

Once, just once, I'd like to see a WaPo pundit seriously consider what other countries in our peer group, so to speak, are doing to keep health care costs in check. Because as Ezra Klein points out in "The Health of Nations" (read it if you haven't), they're doing a damned good job of it, while providing pretty good care to everyone. And they're doing it in a variety of different ways. The main thing that seems to save money, as Ezra notes here, is integration.

Unified systems that handle all aspects of health care for a particular group of people don't have the tremendous inefficiencies that pile up at every step of the way in a non-system like ours, where "it's your insurance company negotiating with an urgent care ward that sends you to a hospital who prescribes a follow-up with a private specialist who tells you to pick up a prescription at the drug store of your choice which gives you a reaction which sends you to the emergency room which then puts you in touch with yet another private specialist," to quote Ezra again.

Even domestically, private integrated health care systems like Kaiser Permanente and public ones such as the Veterans' Administration do a much better job of containing costs than the rest of the health care sector does. And across the pond, entire nations that have single-payer systems pay 40% to 60% of what we do on health care, per capita, to cover everybody.

There can be no "rewriting of the social contract" without benefit cuts, because paying today's benefits inevitably involves much higher taxes, massive deficits or draconian cuts in other government programs. Even with sensible benefit cuts, taxes will have to rise and there will be pressure on other programs.

The problem is, we've got a screwy health care system that's unlike what anyone else in the world has. And Samuelson isn't even aware of that. He pretends to write knowledgeably about this topic, apparently without having ever stuck his head out of the U.S. and seeing how the rest of the world works, without ever getting an clue of just how abnormal and dysfunctional our system is by comparison.

Samuelson is ignorant. Ignorance can be cured, but one has to pull one's head out of one's ass first.

One more thing:

People live longer; they can work longer.

No.

Many of us can work longer. I sit at a computer all day; my work doesn't tax my body at all. I can work a long time.

My father-in-law spent most of a lifetime crawling around industrial refrigeration units. By 62, his body was worn out and used up. If he'd had to work until 65, I'm not sure he'd have made it. Plenty of other people on the bottom level of our service economy are on their feet all day - waitresses, the people who change the sheets and towels in hotel rooms, the women who clean and empty the wastebaskets in my office building, and the like. Just because they live longer, doesn't mean their legs don't give out just as soon.

I doubt that Samuelson even sees these people as they do their jobs, though he surely benefits from their labors. He clearly doesn't think about them. In his mind, people like him are typical. But they're not.

As the saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see. And there are few better examples than Robert J. Samuelson.

Same S***, Different Pundit

"Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein."
-Joe Theismann

Shorter Norman Ornstein: the next President will need to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and he'll need the help of Washington insiders to get that done.

The key initiatives have to come in reforming our large entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- to cope with explosive growth in the number of older people. Change to these programs would mean pain for large numbers of voters.

Yep, same drum, different banger. You're not 'serious' unless you cut the programs that most Americans count on.

You know what, Norm? Social Security is fine. Medicare and Medicaid face problems, but it's because of the explosion in health care costs, not the explosion in older people. The rest of the advanced democracies have solved this problem, while providing health care to everyone. If you were a genius, or even a reasonably smart person, rather than an AEI hack, you'd look across the Atlantic, or even north of the border, and see how different countries are managing this feat.

The question you should be asking is, "how come we're the only country that can't do this?"

But you're an AEI hack, and you're just one more well-paid foot soldier in the WaPo's war on Social Security and Medicare.

Can't ignore your conclusion, Norm:

The change that Washington needs will require the deep deployment of people who know how to move the levers of power from the inside. The presidential bully pulpit is a powerful weapon in a president's arsenal. But it's no substitute for knowing how to get things in Washington.

Yeah, we've noticed. Maybe that's why it's time to cut you guys out of the action.

The Perpetuation of Fantasy Columnists

Robert J. Samuelson's fetid pile of worthless verbiage this morning, "The Rise Of Fantasy Politics," probably wouldn't even make decent compost. Let's roll:

By all rights, we should be having a fierce debate over the role of government. What should it do, for whom and why? What can we afford? Who should pay? These questions would suggest a campaign that seriously engages the future. Instead, we have a bidding war between candidates to see who can promise the most appealing package of new spending programs and tax cuts.

The funny thing is, implicit in the differences in McCain's and Obama's policy positions is a pretty fierce debate over the role of government. Obama wants to greatly expand the availability of affordable health insurance through governmental means; McCain wouldn't. Obama's cap-and-trade plan not only goes further than McCain's in its targets, but its permits would be fully auctionable, which would raise a lot of revenue. McCain's permits probably wouldn't be auctionable, and he doesn't seem like he understands that cap-and-trade means mandatory caps, so it's doubtful that he's all that invested in his own proposal. Obama wants to implement a very mild addition to Social Security revenue, appropriate to a program that's hardly in any trouble. McCain wants to privatize it.

The debate's there, Bob. You're just not covering it.

As we watch the conventions, we should recognize that we've entered an era of fantasy politics. Like fantasy football and baseball, fantasy politics is an exercise in make-believe that is intended to keep its players occupied and to make the winners feel good.

I quote from James Fallows' 1996 piece, "Why Americans Hate the Media":

In the 1992 presidential campaign candidates spent more time answering questions from "ordinary people"—citizens in town-hall forums, callers on radio and TV talk shows—than they had in previous years. The citizens asked overwhelmingly about the what of politics: What are you going to do about the health-care system? What can you do to reduce the cost of welfare? The reporters asked almost exclusively about the how: How are you going to try to take away Perot's constituency? How do you answer charges that you have flip-flopped?

And in the 16 years since, nothing's changed. Except that pundits are more likely to slam candidates for trivializing the race - after the newspapers they write for have failed to cover the substantive proposals they've put forward.

This blog's only been up for a few short weeks, but it's already a recurring theme here. It's the perpetuation of fantasy columnists, with their apparent lifetime tenure, and their protection from all the slings and arrows that affect normal people. Speaking of which, Samuelson says:

Eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare should gradually rise to 70; people now live longer and should work longer.

Bob, I'll put this as politely as I can: go fuck yourself with a piece of rusty rebar.

As I was saying in comments the other day, people like Samuelson, who make more than 97% of Americans do while sitting at a desk, have no problem proposing benefit cuts, raising the eligibility age, and other 'hard choices' that would be hardest on those who are usually the ones who get stuck with the shit end of the stick.

People like him don't know people like my wife's parents, who both barely made it to 62 before they had to retire because their bodies just couldn't take any more.

When people like Samuelson start talking about 'hard choices' for Social Security, they're very lucky I'm not in the room with them. Not that I'd hit anyone (I'm well past that point in life), but when the wave of my anger hit them, they'd feel like they'd been punched in the gut.

But I'm jumping ahead. Samuelson's impetus for raising the retirement age:

Last week, I viewed "I.O.U.S.A.," an 87-minute documentary exploring the grim budget outlook. In many ways, unbalanced budgets define the political deadlock. The persistence of deficits over so many years (42 of the past 47) can have only one basic cause: Politicians of both parties prefer spending to taxing.

Or it might be that, even when a President attacks the problem of unbalanced budgets head-on, balances four budgets in a row, and leaves office with the prospect of long-term budget surpluses ahead, his Vice-President can't get elected because the punditocracy turns the election into a referendum on Love Canal, brown suits, sighs, inventing the Internet, and who'd you rather have a beer with.

As everyone knows, the disconnect will worsen, because aging baby boomers will bloat outlays for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These programs already total nearly two-fifths of the $2.9 trillion federal spending in 2008.

The mismatch between the government's existing spending commitments and the present tax base is so great that we cannot simply tinker a little with government. By 2030, federal taxes could rise 50 percent if all spending programs are kept on automatic pilot, Andrew Yarrow notes in his book "Forgive Us Our Debts."

That would be, I think, an unconscionable burden on workers (the main taxpayers) and a huge threat to the economy. Over the years, I've suggested changes to minimize these dangers. Eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare should gradually rise to 70; people now live longer and should work longer. Medicare premiums for middle-income and richer retirees should increase; the young shouldn't bear most of the expense of growing health-care costs.

Social Security, as I (and half the blogosphere) have been reiterating, is not facing any sort of crisis. The only point of lumping it in with Medicare and Medicaid is to confuse the issue.

But what of Medicare and Medicaid? It seems that all the other advanced nations have universal health care. And oddly enough, they only spend about half as much as we do on health care costs. Maybe Samuelson could take a look at how France and Germany, England and Canada, and countries like that, control health care costs? Maybe there's some lessons to be learned from our peer group here?

Apparently not. That's the sort of pundit Robert J. Samuelson is: a guy who knows less than you do, and is happy to share it with you.

Government programs that have outlived their usefulness or are wasteful should end: farm subsidies and Amtrak, for instance.

I can't argue with him on farm subsidies. But we subsidize cars by building a huge network of highways. At a time when we know energy costs are going to keep on going up, and when we know we can't afford to keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, then maybe, just maybe, we ought to subsidize public transportation nearly as much as we've been subsidizing cars all these years.

That's just stupid.

The rest of his column kinda drivels on like that. And sure, the deficits are big, but dammit, the Dems fixed this problem once already, and pundits like Samuelson didn't exactly scream to the heavens when the Bushies broke it again. This time, Dems get to fix other things first. Otherwise, they might never get the chance.

Fred Hiatt Thinks We Need To Fix Social Security (Part 2)

Fred Hiatt had an online chat today. I took advantage of the opportunity:

Me: Why does The Washington Post's editorial board have such a jones for "fixing" Social Security? If it's broke, it ain't very: the Congressional Budget Office says the trust fund's not expected to run out for another 40-plus years, which means its demise hasn't gotten any closer during the past 15 years. The trust fund has a better than 20 percent chance of outlasting the youngest Boomer's 100th birthday. The 75-year actuarial imbalance amounts to 0.38 percent of GDP, or 1.06 percent of taxable payroll. That's really not very big. And you mention none of this in this morning's "Social Security on Ice" editorial.

Meanwhile, we've got much bigger problems to deal with in the same time horizon. Climate change is much more in need of being addressed quickly, and the long-term consequences are considerably more severe. We're paying a much bigger share of our GDP on health care costs than the European and East Asian democracies are, and that's going to bust the Medicare trust fund. But for some reason, you guys harp on "fixing" Social Security to a much greater degree than these other problems. What's the deal?

Fred Hiatt: We agree that health care costs, and the looming Medicare deficit, are a bigger problem than the Social Security deficit--and will be harder to fix. When you put them both together, the US is on an unsustainable path that will put huge burdens on younger workers to take care of more and more retirees. What we've said is, if SS is easier to fix, let's at least do that, because the longer you wait, the harder it gets--and if we can't do that, it doesn't bode well for fixing the more complicated ones.

Me: Isn't that a universally applicable argument in favor of dealing with more trivial problems before dealing with more substantive problems? Why should the next president burn a good deal of his political capital on a fight regarding Social Security that doesn't need to be fought for at least five years, when time's a-wastin' on climate change and health care costs?

Fred Hiatt: Look, if Congress would enact a serious cap and trade or carbon tax bill, that would make us happy too--as we've said probably more times than our readers care to recall. We don't argue to do the trivial first. What we do say is, to NOT do Social Security because Medicare is more serious is also a silly argument. SS needs fixing, the longer you wait the harder it gets, so why wait? (Plus, in a Washington that worked better, the outlines of a SS compromise would be pretty obvious to most.)

Durn, he just twists every which way, doesn't he? Let's count the twists and twirls:

1) Lumping Social Security in with Medicare: "[w]hen you put them both together, the US is on an unsustainable path..." yada yada yada.

Look, if a 170 pound man and a 500-pound man get on a scale together, it's clear that the 170-pound man and the 500-pound man need to get their combined weight under control. Hiatt's answer is to write a pile of editorials recommending that the 170-pound man face up to painful choices regarding diet and exercise.

2) Social Security as test run for dealing with more major problems: I responded to that, and Hiatt retreated to:

3) "We don't argue to do the trivial first. What we do say is, to NOT do Social Security because Medicare is more serious is also a silly argument."

OK, then, let's take up fixing Social Security after passing effective climate change legislation, and after controlling health care costs. I'm good on that. So why's the Washington Post editorial page been far more relentless in its advocacy of 'fixing' Social Security than it has on health care and climate change? It hasn't been saying, "deal with climate change and health care costs first, but it shouldn't lose sight of Social Security." It's been maintaining a relentless 'fix Social Security' drumbeat for years.

4) "SS needs fixing, the longer you wait the harder it gets, so why wait?" Bzzzzt! The longer we've waited, the harder it hasn't gotten: the point on the horizon when the Trust Fund will run out, keeps on receding. As long as it keeps doing so, it doesn't need fixing at all.

5) "The outlines of a SS compromise [are] pretty obvious."

Here's my 'obvious' solution: wait until the Trust Fund is expected to run out in only 35 years, then write legislation to be triggered when the expected exhaustion date is 30 years away. Then if we never reach that date, we never have to 'fix' anything.

I doubt that remotely resembles Hiatt's 'pretty obvious' compromise. But then, Hiatt's a dumbass. But you knew that.

Fred Hiatt Thinks We Need To Fix Social Security (Part 1)

The unsigned editorial, "Social Security On Ice" is subtitled, "The presidential candidates appear eager to avoid a serious debate about how to fix it," which is as much as one needs to know.

As Hilzoy pointed out (and I reiterated) the other day, the CBO has just stated the following facts about Social Security:
1) The expected date of the Trust Fund's exhaustion has moved back to 2049, over four decades away. (In other words, over the past 15 years, the expected date of exhausting the Trust Fund has gotten further away from the present, rather than closer.)
2) Even if those reserves get exhausted, benefits supportable by ongoing Social Security tax revenues after that time will be greater, adjusted for inflation, than they are now.
3) The expected 75-year shortfall amounts to 0.38 percent of GDP, or 1.06 percent of taxable payroll.

And let me add one more:

4) The CBO says there's about a 25% chance that the youngest Baby Boomer will turn 100 before the Trust Fund is exhausted. (Social Security was designed as a pay-as-you-go program, which would work fine if our population grew at a steady rate. The whole point of having a Trust Fund on top of the regular tax revenue was to deal with the bulge in the U.S. population distribution known as the Baby Boom.)

But the Washington Post is fixated on 'fixing' Social Security, whether it needs it or not, whether it's urgent or not. Last year, the WaPo commenced a series of 'ideas primary' editorials. Five of the first 15 addressed, yep, the need to fix Social Security. They're obsessed.