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OH, THE GALL. Alan Greenspan is again calling for policymakers to show some political courage and take tough actions to deal with the looming Social Security and Medicare crises. Forget for a moment his elision of the two entitlement programs into a single looming problem, which is a clever way of obscuring the relative fiscal health of Social Security (in contrast to the very real troubles with Medicare) so as to legitimize more drastic changes to it. Forget also for the moment that the remedies he calls for -- like raising the retirement age -- would barely make a dent in the long-term fiscal crisis the country is heading toward.
Instead, note only that this is yet another article on Greenspan’s Social Security agenda that fails to mention his leading role first in pushing for increases in the regressive payroll taxes in the 1980s to secure the system and then, two decades later, advocating for George Bush’s massively regressive tax cuts -- tax cuts that are, of course, the underlying cause of the ostensible Social Security “crisis” he’s so worried about now. It’s simply the most brazen and drawn-out Robin Hood-in-reverse scheme I’ve ever heard of, and it’s worth emphasizing every time the Maestro opens his mouth on the subject.
This is exactly right - Greenspan advocated raising payroll taxes which later allowed him to advocate for using that revenue to pay for tax cuts for the rich and then advocate against using that money for the purpose he said it should be used for.
Decent people should shun this man.
There is no problem with Social Security, except if it's lumped in with the overall looming financial crisis which the Bush tax cuts created. There is a problem with Medicare, but that's wrapped up in the general problem of the health care system as a whole. If you think the solution is "letting more old people die by cutting their benefits" - well, that's a solution to *something*, but not really the solution most of us have in mind.