The New York Times serves up some fried weasel!

A Bridge to Sell
New York Times Editorial, January 24, 2005

One of the main talking points in the administration's drive to privatize Social Security is that retirees have nothing to fear. "If you're a senior receiving your Social Security check, nothing is going to change," President Bush said recently. Mr. Bush seems to presume that older Americans are indifferent to the future retirement security of their children and grandchildren. But even taken on its face, the argument does not hold up.

The president promises that under a private retirement scheme, anyone age 55 or older would continue to receive full Social Security benefits. What he repeatedly fails to mention is that privatization would require some $2 trillion in new borrowing over the next 10 years and an additional $4.5 trillion in the decade thereafter. That's on top of the trillions that need to be found to cover the costs of Medicare and Medicaid and - if the president gets his way - to make this decade's tax cuts permanent. It's foolhardy to assume that the government could continue to meet all of its obligations, including the payment of Social Security benefits, under such a mountain of debt. [Emphasis added]

All told, by 2030, when today's 55-year-olds turn 80, the national debt would be as big as the economy itself, according to a calculation by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that uses data from Social Security and the Congressional Budget Office. …

Despite the risks to their own economic well-being in retirement, some older Americans might be willing to support Social Security privatization if it would ensure a stable retirement for their children and grandchildren. But it wouldn't. Privatization would require potentially debilitating borrowing up front, in exchange for a drastically reduced benefit later on, no matter how well, or poorly, private accounts performed. So there's no reason for senior citizens to support it and plenty of reasons to oppose it. Mr. Bush is wily, and wrong, when he tries to dismiss older Americans from the debate.

The “liberal” press is finally backing away from its reluctance to call what Bush is doing what it is. He’s lying! The goddamned, contemptible weasel is doing with Social Security what he’s done with so many things. He’s creating a phony crisis. Oooh! WMD; oooh, evil lawyers trying to lynch “good” doctors whose only crime is amputating the wrong leg; oooh tax-cuts to return the budget surplus, or restart the economy, or payoff his fat-cat friends.

May he rot in hell! I mean that in a good way.