1 response so far ↓

• 1 Daniel // May 3, 2005 at 4:45 pm

  “There may be political reasons for cutting a monthly check to Bill Gates when he turns 65, but there are no sane policy reasons.” Oh, come on. Political reasons are sane policy reasons. In an oft-used libertarian tactic, you point out the absurdity of the system and then claim that “Oh, if only policy was designed perfectly according to this philosophical concept, the world would be such a wonderful place.” Yea, maybe, but that’s not the way laws work. Democratic policy is never logical or consistent. You explain that “liberals will block such an improvement, because there’s no way for conservatives to credibly promise that, once Social Security is explicitly restructured as welfare, they won’t gut it.” That’s it exactly. Social security was designed to solve a very real depression-era problem. But now it’s political. So what? You’re not going to retire on social security. The amount of money deducted from your paycheck for social security is minimal; it’s really just not worth it to get so worked up over a philosophical concept.