Monday, May 02, 2005

Beware of Bush bearing gifts. I was listening to an interview with Robert Pozen on The Connection today and it was extraordinary how progressive the idea of indexing Social Security sounded.  Why, I wondered, was this president getting behind such a progressive idea, and why were the liberals lining up against it?     I then had the good fortune to read Paul Krugmans devestating analysis of the proposal in today's Times. Krugman begins with what I think is the single most important observation of journalism: "By now, every journalist should know that you have to carefully check out any scheme coming from the White House. You can't just accept the administration's version of what it's doing." He then proceeds to show how this indexing scheme is being touted as a transfer of Social Security benefits from the rich to the poor, but in fact will barely affect the truly rich, and will devestate the middle and upper middle class's benefits.   12:10:53 PM    comment []