DeLong’s New Song?

by Will Wilkinson on January 12, 2005

I’m pleased to see that Brad DeLong has endorsed the general principles of the President’s (still indeterminate) plan for social security reform. DeLong is worried that the President’s proposal will turn into some kind of monstrosity, given Bush’s record, which is fair enough. It seems that DeLong is basically saying that he would endorse something like personal accounts if only it was proposed by a Democratic president. If he is saying that, it’s pretty interesting, given the heated vehemence of his prior attacks on personal accounts and their advocates.

Jonathan

Oh, Lungfish, do you mean "grown up" International realists who really do mean it that they like it that Iraqis voted last month, but really, really, really do wish we'd also kept out of Iraq so Saddam could help Kofi's gang to more oil kickbacks? Hey, realism's great if that's your idea of reality -- eating your butcher and having him also.

On W's Social Security reform, I cannot help but agree with every single one of DeLong's substantive criticisms of it here, which is why I support it withut reservations.

As for Bob Jacobs's question, which is in fact substantive, the matter of where the money will come from for future retirees is a good one. But it seems to me it would be exactly the same matter whether the government is diverting some younger workers SS money into their own accounts or deceitfully spending a surpluse of it themselves, as they are now, while pretending to put it in some bogus trust fund. It's a difference without a distinction. Except I would rather see the young people get it directly -- and I am 62!

Bob Jacobs

Bush's proposals need more than a little work. If you look at the investment results from H.R.-10 and 401(k) plans, you will find something woefully less than what this Administration is forecasting. More to the point, what are our current retirees going to look to to assure their monthly social security checks will keep coming. Will Bush borrow the funds necessary to keep all those checks in the mail?

Social security was designed to assure our older members of society that they would have a base source of revenue for their retirement years. Without funds coming from younger workers each month, where do we look for the money needed to fund the promised monthly income stream?

By eliminatinting the ceiling on the wages or other income subject to social security tax, we could probably increase the monthly receipts sufficiently to assure payments to all retirees for the foreseeable future and beyond.

Johnathan Pearce

I quite like Brad deLong but he does allow partizan snarkiness to spoil his arguments. Still, he has a long way to descend before he ends up like a pathetically diminished Dem. hack like Paul Krugman. That man has zero credibility these days, IMHO.

Iron Lungfish

JB, you obviously didn't read Delong during most of 2004, when he was constantly trotting out "grown-up Republicans" - i.e., fiscal conservatives and international realists.

jb

seamus,

Given Prof. DeLong's history of mocking and heated rhetoric against pretty much every person on the right, I'd say that for DeLong, republican == incompetent.

So you're both right!

seamus

Read it again. He's not saying he opposes the president's SS plan because Bush is a Republican. He's saying he opposes it because the Bush administration has totally screwed up everything they've touched. It's not because they're Republicans, its because they've demonstrated something close to incompetence.