[lbo-talk] Krugman: The Zombies Who Ate Alan Simpson's Brain

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Tue Jun 22 16:13:02 PDT 2010


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/zombies-have-already-killed-the-deficit-commission

Paul Krugman - New York Times Blog

June 21, 2010, 12:12 pm

Zombies Have Already Killed The Deficit Commission

It must have sounded like a good idea (although not to me):

establish a bipartisan commission of Serious People to develop plans

to bring the federal budget under control.

But the commission is already dead -- and zombies did it.

OK, the immediate problem is the statements of Alan Simpson, the

commission's co-chairman. And what got reporters' attention was the

combination of incredible insensitivity - the "lesser people"??? --

and flat errors of fact.

But it's actually much worse than that. On Social Security, Simpson

is repeating a zombie lie -- that is, one of those misstatements

that keeps being debunked, but keeps coming back.

Specifically, Simpson has resurrected the old nonsense about how

Social Security will be bankrupt as soon as payroll tax revenues

fall short of benefit payments, never mind the quarter century of

surpluses that came first.

We went through all this at length back in 2005, but let me do this

yet again.

Social Security is a government program funded by a dedicated tax.

There are two ways to look at this. First, you can simply view the

program as part of the general federal budget, with the the

dedicated tax bit just a formality. And there's a lot to be said for

that point of view; if you take it, benefits are a federal cost,

payroll taxes a source of revenue, and they don't really have

anything to do with each other.

Alternatively, you can look at Social Security on its own. And as a

practical matter, this has considerable significance too; as long as

Social Security still has funds in its trust fund, it doesn't need

new legislation to keep paying promised benefits.

OK, so two views, both of some use. But here's what you can't do:

you can't have it both ways. You can't say that for the last 25

years, when Social Security ran surpluses, well, that didn't mean

anything, because it's just part of the federal government -- but

when payroll taxes fall short of benefits, even though there's lots

of money in the trust fund, Social Security is broke.

And bear in mind what happens when payroll receipts fall short of

benefits: NOTHING. No new action is required; the checks just keep

going out.

So what does it mean that the co-chair of the commission is

resurrecting this zombie lie? It means that at even the most basic

level of discussion, either (a) he isn't willing to deal in good

faith or (b) the zombies have eaten his brain. And in either case,

there's no point going on with this farce.



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