<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Opinion Columns and Letters</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><description>Opinion Columns and Letters</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[One-Sided on Social Security]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10683-2005Apr22.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10683-2005Apr22.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ Jonathan Weisman's article on the potential popularity of President Bush's Social Security reforms ["Bush Social Security Plan Proves Tough Sell Among Working Poor," front page, April 18] rehashes a tired argument while perpetuating the biggest fallacy about the current Social Security system.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Avoiding Britain's Pension Problems]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6189-2005Apr20.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6189-2005Apr20.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ An April 11 Business story said that President Bush's Social Security proposal "closely echoes" Britain's individual account system.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Paris Hilton Tax Cut]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45305-2005Apr11.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45305-2005Apr11.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  The same people who insist that critics of Social Security privatization should offer reform proposals of their own are working feverishly to eliminate alternatives that might reduce the need for benefit cuts or payroll tax increases.]]></description><author> E. J. Dionne Jr.</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fix Health Care First]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32732-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32732-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  At a moment when the whole world is rightly celebrating the life of a man of faith, Pope John Paul II, it may seem perverse to write of the value of skepticism. But in a long span of years covering public affairs, I have come to value the contributions of the naysayers, those brave spirits who  --  right or wrong  --  challenge the conventional wisdom.]]></description><author> David S. Broder</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Economic Death Spiral]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28419-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28419-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  The great danger of an aging society is that the rising costs of government retirement programs  --  mainly Social Security and Medicare  --  increase taxes or budget deficits so much that they reduce economic growth. This could trigger an economic and political death spiral. Our commitments to pay retirement benefits grow while our capacity to meet them shrinks. Workers and retirees battle over a relatively fixed economic pie. The debate we're not having is how to avoid this dismal future. President Bush's vague Social Security proposal, including "personal accounts," sidesteps the critical issues. His noisiest critics are equally silent.]]></description><author> Robert J. Samuelson</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Social Insurance, Not Welfare]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8378-2005Mar28.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8378-2005Mar28.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ The next time Robert J. Samuelson decides to write a mean-spirited column, I suggest that he first check his arithmetic ["Welfare Junkies," op-ed, March 24].]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Inspiration Is Not the Solution]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5683-2005Mar27.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5683-2005Mar27.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   A March 19 story reported on the success of the retirement plan established in 1981 for 2,000 employees of Galveston County, Tex., in lieu of Social Security ["In Texas, a Model for Bush Proposal," front page]. Whatever success the county had was due, however,  in large part to its being a single-employer plan, much like the federal Thrift Savings Plan.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Welfare Junkies]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61696-2005Mar23.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61696-2005Mar23.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  We are a nation of closet welfare junkies, which helps explain why we can't have an honest  debate about Social Security. Social Security and Medicare are our biggest welfare programs, but because Americans regard "welfare" as shameful, we've found other labels for them. We call them "social insurance" or "entitlements." Anything but <em>welfare</em>. Democrats and Republicans alike embrace the deception. No one wants to upset older voters. Well, if you can't call something by its real name, you can't discuss it honestly.]]></description><author> Robert J. Samuelson</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Clay Shaw's Alternative]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48497-2005Mar18.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48497-2005Mar18.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[President Bush's open-ended invitation for anyone to come forward with ideas on Social Security reform has brought responses from a number of Republican legislators. Some, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have won deserved praise for acknowledging that rescuing the endangered retirement, survivor and disability fund from the fiscal effects of the baby boom may require sacrifice from taxpayers and beneficiaries alike.]]></description><author> David S. Broder</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Twisting Mr. Moynihan's Social Security Views]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35385-2005Mar14.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35385-2005Mar14.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   I was a staff member for  the late  Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and provided him with advice on Social Security reform in 1983. I am tired of seeing his views distorted for political purposes by Republican supporters of individual Social Security accounts.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Missing Proposal]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32587-2005Mar13.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32587-2005Mar13.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Last year Democrats impaled themselves on the Iraq war. They were so anxious to denounce the invasion that they failed to acknowledge the most basic point of all: that, having waded into Iraq, the United States could not leave prematurely. By attacking the Bush policy relentlessly, Democrats sounded negative. By refusing to say clearly that they would finish the Iraq job, they sounded irresponsible.]]></description><author>Sebastian Mallaby</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lindsey Graham's Good Idea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28526-2005Mar11.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28526-2005Mar11.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   In 1994, when a 39-year-old state legislator was asked in Aiken, S.C., how he was enticing voters to make him the first Republican elected to Congress from that district since Reconstruction, he said: "I'm one less vote for an agenda that makes you want to throw up." Lindsey Graham won, and in 2002, advocating voluntary personal retirement accounts funded by a portion of individuals' Social Security taxes, he won a Senate seat. Now he has an idea that makes some Republicans throw up: Raise the current $90,000 limit on income subject to Social Security taxes.]]></description><author> George F. Will</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Social Security: With   Doughnuts, Or Not At All]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28519-2005Mar11.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28519-2005Mar11.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ Having read Jonathan Weisman's Feb. 24 front-page article  comparing proposals for shoring up the Social Security system, I suggest using a doughnut approach for subjecting wages to Social Security tax.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Welfare vs. Wall St.]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25616-2005Mar10.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25616-2005Mar10.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Let's suppose Congress approves President Bush's "personal accounts" for Social Security. The Social Security system would then become the largest single investor in U.S. stocks. By 2050 Social Security could hold 25 percent of all stocks, estimate economists at Goldman Sachs. This estimate reflects a modest plan for personal accounts; other proposals would permit bigger stock purchases. Hardly anyone has thought about the economic consequences of concentrating so much stock in the Social Security system. My hunch is that it would turn out to be a huge mistake  --  or worse.]]></description><author> Robert J. Samuelson</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bush's Misplayed Hand]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18707-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18707-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   American politics has been so corrupted by concepts such as "positioning" and "message discipline" that citizens don't get credit for their ability to decide issues on the merits. But when the public knows and cares a great deal about what's at stake, it is quite discerning about what's true and what's not.]]></description><author> E. J. Dionne Jr.</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Right Questions on Social Security]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18710-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18710-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Every once in a while, in a debate as dominated by partisanship and dogma as the current slugfest over Social Security, you run into someone whose views seem informed instead by facts and fundamental  principles. One such person came to The Post the other day in the slightly rumpled form of Bob Pozen, who arrived without  the usual ideological baggage or the entourage that trails your average corporate titan.]]></description><author> Ruth Marcus</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Framing the Debate on Social Security's Future]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18663-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18663-2005Mar8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ The March 4 editorial "Social Security Breakdown" correctly pointed out that the demographic predicament of Social Security must be dealt with. Refusal to address the problem would be, as The Post wrote, "closing [one's] eyes and sticking . . . fingers in [one's] ears."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Silent Cal's Lesson]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2709-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2709-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Under some unwritten rule, all modern presidents must pay homage to a like-minded predecessor. A picture is hung in the Oval Office. A bust is placed on the presidential desk. Bill Clinton, you will remember,  made his pilgrimage up the Hudson to the Hyde Park estate of Franklin D. Roosevelt. George W. Bush, in the estimation of others (if not himself), is another William McKinley, the president who transformed the GOP and made it dominant until the New Deal almost made it obsolete. Nobody, though, mentions Calvin Coolidge.]]></description><author> Richard Cohen</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[What Social Security Promises -- and Doesn't]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48692-2005Feb23.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48692-2005Feb23.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Charles Krauthammer [op-ed, Feb. 18] suggested rolling cigars with the "pieces of paper" cre- ated when funds collected through Social Security are lent to the federal Treasury.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Journalistic Malpractice]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45578-2005Feb22.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45578-2005Feb22.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/socialsecurity/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 7:48:09 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   It's always necessary to do the math. By this I mean that journalists need to measure politicians' promises against underlying realities, as represented by numbers. But many reporters detest math. This math phobia partly explains why the media did such an abysmal job covering the debate over the Medicare drug benefit -- ignoring the program's long-term costs -- and why they're committing a similar blunder with President Bush's Social Security plan. They're missing the obvious: The plan doesn't address baby boomers' retirement costs.]]></description><author> Robert J. Samuelson</author></item></channel></rss>