Screw Social Security

Slate's kausfiles takes the interesting position that the Dems should allow the Repubs to screw themselves with social security. I can't say I disagree with all of his claims, actually...

I'd quote at length, but just go read it. Give it a chance.

As Kinsley notes, Bush's private account plan lacks economic logic (if it's not funded with new taxes it actually makes the solvency problem worse) but it has a political logic, which is this: it's something positive to offer voters in exchange for the pain of solvency-producing reforms. Otherwise the future of Social Security is all Europe-style negativity--cuts and taxes, with noisy fights over which it will be. It might be worth a small private account scheme, Kinsley argues, if that's the necessary spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.

But this is medicine we don't need to take right now. And the Democrats will have a better spoonful down the road--health care--that will require a bigger dose of medicine. Let's take it then.