The Krugman Security Crisis

At his blog, New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman accuses journalists of playing “gotcha” games with past quotes rather than debating facts and figures– the substance, he says — of pertinent issues.  In typical big-paper fashion, he doesn’t name his target, but it’s obvious that he’s responding to Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, who recently wrote a Washington Post column showing how Krugman, who now claims that there isn’t much of a Social Security crisis, used to think there was.  This is a pretty weak response, I think; Marcus got Krugman good, and his “meta-thought” post fails to account for the reasons why he changed his mind, as well as his failure to disclose that he’d once been a firm believer in the existence of an entitlement crisis.  

Two things seem worth mentioning here. The first is that Krugman, as an op-ed columnist, has hardly played the evenhanded statistical analyst. The entire thesis of his recent book is that the rise of the Republican party can be pinned primarily on GOP appeals to racism. (For a convincing response to that claim, and a more compelling history, see Ross Douthat.) And it’s not as if Krugman’s original column on the alleged lack of a social security crisis was exactly choc-full-o-stats.  He briefly quotes a CBO analyst and then went on to bash Barack Obama (!) for recognizing that, hey, maybe social security, as it’s currently designed, isn’t such a great system. 

Second, if Krugman is so keen to debate the issue substantively, how about some numbers?  Cato’s Michael Tanner reports that there are $12 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Social Security taxes have already been raised 40 times, and if the current system runs its course, it will account for a whopping 71% of the federal budget by 2060.  And it’s not as if the program is providing much of a safety net as is. The average current benefit is less than $11,000 a year —  not exactly a cushy retirement, much less serious “security.” (That’s several thousand less, in fact, than a full year of wages at the new minimum wage.) 

Krugman, of course, just wants to have it both ways: being able to snipe at those who’re taking the failings of social security seriously without having to respond to his statements on the matter.