Anti-Progressive

Adam Doverspike

Michael Barone has a nice write-up on social security today. He chronicles how "experts" and big corporations in the past have miscalculated and defined benefit plans (such as social security) have failed. The broad strokes he uses are the best ones to win over fence sitters and his conclusion is spot on:

Some Democrats attack this plan as hugely risky, because the stock market goes up and down. But the stock market has always gone up over the course of a typical lifetime. The Democrats' more serious argument is that Social Security should be a bedrock guarantee not subject to market risk. But this is antiprogressive: It leaves lower-income workers with less ability to accumulate wealth. More important, what if the bedrock turns out to be quicksand? The experts, as Justice Harlan noted nearly a half century ago, don't always get it right.

Posted by Adam Doverspike on June 6, 2005 9:05 AM to Social Security Choice