Krugman on Social Security privatization

Paul Krugman, NYT:

he people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons are now trying another bum's rush. If they succeed, we will do nothing about the real fiscal threat and will instead dismantle Social Security, a program that is in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government...

The long-term cost of the Bush tax cuts is five times the budget office's estimate of Social Security's deficit over the next 75 years. The botched prescription drug bill passed in 2003 does more, all by itself, to increase the long-run budget deficit than the projected rise in Social Security expenses.

Of course, it would have happened if Tom Daschle and the other Dems-in-Name-Only hadn't voted for Bush's inane tax cut (you'll recall that Daschle, may he not rest in peace, was the profile in courage who countered Bush's ridiculous large $1.6 trillion tax cut proposal with a $1.3 trillion tax cut proposal of his own).