Add-on Insanity

Posted by: Audi Partem Alteram
on April 21, 2005 @ 03:20 PM EST

Add-ons present a nightmare scenario to advocates of substantive Social Security reform. The President and Republican members of Congress have spent too much time and effort convincing Americans that the system is in danger for them to not act. Something is going to happen. But what?

The groundswell of support for private accounts that some believe is just around the corner isn't, and increasingly those in Congress are realizing this. Unfortunately, many of our legislators are now turning to add-ons as a solution to this political quandary. Conservative legislators are rightly furious. We all should be.

Add-ons, as if through a perverse alchemy, represent a new entitlement that is in some magical way going to ease our existing entitlement mess. To me this gets back to the issue of our risk-averse populace, and the inability of our leaders to sell the merits of risk to the country at large. But whatever the justifications for add-ons, they run counter to the twin goals of Social Security reform: personal responsibility and system solvency. To the intellectually honest advocate of reform, add-ons are a serious threat, and must be energetically opposed.

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