Flap’s Links and Comments for September 12th on 08:30

These are my links for September 12th from 08:30 to 12:03:

• Is Perry going to walk back his Social Security rhetoric? – Perry’s central issue — and it’s a problem for Romney too — is that he’s really not exerting any leadership or showing courage. He writes, “We must have a frank, honest national conversation about fixing Social Security to protect benefits for those at or near retirement while keeping faith with younger generations, who are being asked to pay.” Oh, puh-leez. Haven’t we been discussing entitlements for a good long time.? What is his idea?

  It’s not very daring to throw red meat to the base. It’s not real brave to then hedge your bets. What would be courageous and impressive would be to lay out a reform agenda with specifics — on Social Security, Medicare, Medicare, the debt and immigration, among other issues. That would certainly set up a contrast with the president and demonstrate some moxie. Let’s see if he can do it. Let’s see if any of the candidates can do it. Or should they just give up, announce Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will be the VP pick and he’ll figure it all out? The GOP and the country could do a lot worse.

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  Bachmann and Romney will be all over Perry tonight at the debate, if Perry does not walk back the rhetoric a bit.

  The Paul Ryan as VP idea is a good one.

• Rick Perry Walks the Third Rail – Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme? It was sold politically as a form of social insurance where the "premiums" paid each year of a working person's life were saved up and entitled him to retirement benefits. To underscore this point, FDR started collecting Social Security taxes in 1937 but did not distribute benefits until 1941.

  But, under the weight of the automatic cost of living adjustments started under Nixon, the benefits have long outstripped the amounts that have been paid in by each retiree. Social Security functions like any other cash transfer program, taking from younger generations and paying the money to the older ones. The collected payroll tax deductions of the average retiree account for only a small part of his total pension. In that sense it is a Ponzi scheme – it sells itself as a savings and investment plan but it uses each new generations' revenues to fund the older one's benefits.

  But it's a Ponzi scheme with the power to tax. If Bernie Madoff had that capability, he wouldn't be in jail today. A Ponzi scheme is only bad when the new money dries up. With the power to tax, it need never do so.

  Is Social Security a failure? Hell no! It is the most successful anti-poverty program of all time. From FDR's second inaugural where he said that one-third of the nation was "ill clothed, ill housed, and ill fed" until the early 60s when Michael Harrington alerted the nation to its high poverty level, the elderly constituted about half of America's poor. Now there is no such thing as an impoverished senior citizen and our poverty rate has dropped from one-third to one-eighth, largely due to Social Security (and partly due to welfare reform).

  Now Perry is flying in the face of the deeply held opinions of the entire American electorate. Rasmussen Reports shows that only 17% of Americans agree that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Rick Perry would do well to side with the 83%, not the 17% if he wants to get elected.

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  Perry needs to walk back the rhetoric at tonight's debate.

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