Kevin's Weblog

The true motivations of the administration become clear when you compare how they are approaching Social Security vs. Medicare

By any rational estimation, Medicare is is far, far worse shape than Social Security. It is the real crisis. However, Bush isn’t saying a thing about it.

On the other hand, Social Security is in decent shape and could be fixed with a couple minor course corrections. But, Bush want to radically overhaul the system, piling a huge amount of debt on it and removing the whole “security” part.

Clearly, the goal is to completely dismantle both systems. Medicare will implode on its own in a little more than a decade, so there is no need to intervene there. Social Security is fully solvent for another 45 years and the long-term solutions are obvious, so action must be taken to subvert and drive it out of existence.

Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state. If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state.

-- Stephen Moore, former president of the Club for Growth, in the New York Times