Citizen Journal

Even without private accounts, aggressive means-testing a la Pozen risks undermining Social Security over time. Insulating the poor from cuts is a left-wing goal. But it will create a large class of Americans who get much, much less out of Social Security than they put in and for whom Social Security as a whole is demonstrably a very bad deal. Early Social Security guru Wilbur Cohen may well have been correct in his belief that "in the United States, a program that deals only with the poor will end up being a poor program. ... " Loading a large chunk of the burden of fixing Social Security onto America's upper middle class may be the first step in the creation of a mid-21st-century political majority for the phasing-out of the program as a whole.

The truth is, voters are not so narrowly self-interested as that. On the contrary, they're generous to a fault. Welfare, the Great Society and the rest of it, were popular for a while, and only when it became clear that the tangle of liberal programs was a creeping catastrophe for our economy and society did resistance mount. Voters will continue to support an affordable program of baseline income security for those deemed too old to work. If the Social Security system were something as fair and sensible as that, its opponents wouldn't have a chance.

If, on the other hand, the Dems succeeded in shackling us to the present broken system until it drags the country over a fiscal cliff, there'll be hell to pay. A generation or two will have been defrauded and violated, and they'll be angry. Anything could happen. No one's benefits will be safe.

To his credit, unlike the Democratss, Brad Delong has put forward a plan for Social Security. Basically, soak the rich. Too bad the Democrats won't make DeLong's plan their own. We'd have a real debate then. And an easy one to win.