| 0:33 | Intro. [Recording date: November 16, 2017.] Russ Roberts: John Cogan's latest book, which is the topic of today's conversation, is The High Cost of Good Intentions: A History of U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs.... So, I said it's a big book. I don't want to discourage any purchasers or readers. It's not super-long. It's a little under 400 pages. But it's a very comprehensive and remarkably clearly-written book on the history of the Federal government's role in transferring money to various classes of American citizens. And I learned a great deal from it. I want to start with the beginning, which I knew very little about. The beginning of Federal government entitlements is pensions for war veterans. Take us back to the beginning. John Cogan: Well, that's right, Russ. Most people think that the sort of entitlements began with the New Deal. But it turns out that entitlements are as old as the Republic. And, as you said, the first entitlement program was a disability pension program for wartime veterans of the Revolutionary War. And it was followed of course by similar programs for persons who were disabled in wartime service in each of the subsequent wars during the 19th century. But, the Revolutionary War program sort of set the patterns that all entitlement programs follow. What you see in the Revolutionary War pension program is almost exactly what you see in modern entitlements. All of the same patterns. Incremental expansion of benefits occurring usually when there are times of budget surpluses. Each expansion tends to be permanent. And therefore, when Congress considers a subsequent expansion it regards all previous expansions as a base upon which to consider the next expansion. And then, finally, Congress has shown, shows it's inability to estimate just how much these entitlement programs are going to cost. So, everything that you see in modern entitlements, we see in the Revolutionary War pension program. Russ Roberts: And then we see it in 1812. And then we see it in the Civil War. The part that's interesting to me is that it starts off--let's talk about how the eligibility evolves over time. So, it's starts off: If you were hurt in the war, you get a check. Which, a lot of people thought: That seems fair. You signed up--or in those days, you signed up, you didn't expect to get hurt; you knew you could. But if you did, it seemed pretty reasonable that you'd get compensated extra, above and beyond what your pay was. John Cogan: Yes. That's correct. The Revolutionary War pension program started out actually with a fairly narrowly defined group of veterans. As you said, it was those who had been injured in battle, or the widows of those that had lost their life in battle. But the only group that was eligible among those disabled veterans were those that had served in the Continental Army or the Continental Navy. Members of the Militia or volunteers were not eligible. They were a state responsibility. The Continental Army was a Federal responsibility. But, 20 years after the program had started, Congress was experiencing large budget surpluses. And the program was expanded to include veterans who had served in the Militia or who had volunteered for service during the War of Independence. Then, about 20, 10 years after than, another expansion occurred. And then, the final liberalization is perhaps the most interesting one. It occurred in 1832. And it was the Universal Pension Law. And it granted disability pensions to any soldier who had served during the Revolutionary War in any capacity for at least 9 months. And so, you'd gone from a program where the group of eligible recipients was pretty narrowly defined to one where eligibility was simply service to one's country regardless of the capacity in which you served and regardless of whether one was disabled or not. Russ Roberts: And, of course, at that point, there weren't so many of them left. So, it was a relatively inexpensive expansion. John Cogan: Well, one would have thought so. Russ Roberts: 1832-- John Cogan: 1832 was 49 years after the Revolutionary War had ended. I think life expectancy was around age 65, maybe. And the typical veteran would have been in his 1970s at that point. And so you are right. The architects of the law thought there would be very few recipients around to collect benefits. Lo and behold, a flood of applicants came in. I think the numbers are as follows. The architects expected about 10,000 soldiers to apply and qualify. A year later, 24,600 had qualified for benefits. And so, like in modern entitlements, they had completely underestimated the number of soldiers who would eventually receive benefits. I think the cost of that was that program was extraordinarily high. In 1833, Revolutionary War pensions accounted for about 1/4th of Federal spending. There's a funny quote that I have in my book from John Quincy Adams about this remarkable number of veterans who came forth to claim benefits, and his quote goes as follows: "He says, Uriah Tracy"--Uriah Tracy was his friend and a former Senator--"used to say that the soldiers of the Revolutionary War never die. They are immortal." Had he lived to this time, he would have seen that they multiply with time. Russ Roberts: So, some of that was just bad actuarial estimates. Some of it was fraud, presumably. And some of it just was in surprise at how many people were willing to go through whatever the process was of applying. John Cogan: That's a very important point you just made, Russ. Throughout history, what we've seen with entitlements is that if you provide a benefit, you will end up causing individuals to respond to the incentive that the benefit entitlement provides, modify their circumstances so that they can qualify for assistance. And sometimes it borders on fraud. Sometimes it's not fraud: it's just a modification in your behavior that's perfectly within the limits of the law. But invariably, the response by individuals to the incentives created by the availability of the entitlement causes the government to underestimate the eventual cost of the entitlement. Russ Roberts: It just reminds me--one of the things I really enjoyed in the book were the quotes from various brave Senators, typically, or members of Congress, occasionally a president who would try to stand athwart the tide of expansion, whether it was Social Security or Revolutionary War pensions. And they'd say, 'This is irresponsible. We know this isn't true. We're never going to do this, that, and the other that we claim we're going to do.' And it's nice to have those heroic but ineffective efforts noted. And some of them are quite entertaining. I just wanted to mention that. |
| 9:22 | Russ Roberts: But, one of the things I learned most from your book that I already knew in some dimension but your book really brings it home, which I found very valuable, is that you ask economists--and I think we often teach our students this way. I try not to, but I think it's a common approach. We say, 'What determines the size of government?' Well, people--in a Public Finance class, they'll say, 'Well, we look at the things that the market doesn't do well--externalities, public goods--and that's where government has a role to play. And then we have to worry about taxation--how we're going to raise the money; and we try to do that in the most efficient way possible. And we try to spend the money as wisely as possible.' Etc., etc. But what your books shows is that that model of how government behaves is not so accurate. In particular, throughout really the whole history of entitlements, budget surpluses didn't ever--at least in your story; maybe you cherry-picked--budget surpluses never cause politicians to say, 'Well, we can cut tax rates and give people back money to spend on their own.' Instead, it's like, 'Let's give away more money than we did before.' And, it's interesting--I think most people don't think about it; I certainly don't always think about it--in 1832, there wasn't a lot of government revenue from anything other than tariffs. What else was there money coming in from? There's no income tax. Where else did the Federal government get its money besides tariff revenue? And what else was it spending money on besides these pensions that as you say were a quarter--which I think kind of shocking--a quarter of all government spending at that point? Of course, it was a low level of total spending. But still, 25%. John Cogan: So, the tariffs were important. Your listeners might remember the Tariff of Abominations, in 1828, which provided a significant amount of tariff revenue. But, the big bolus of revenues in the 1830s and late 1820s came from land sales that the government was offering up--lands in the Western regions--and it brought in a huge amount of revenue. In fact, in 1832, the surplus of revenues was more than twice expenditures. So, there was this massive surplus. Andrew Jackson had vowed that he would use the surplus to extinguish the national debt that various presidents had moved to reduce. But he was going to extinguish it. And then, of course, we saw Congress's response to this surplus--which was the tremendous expansion of the Revolutionary War pension program. But the vast majority of other spending by the Federal government outside of pensions was for national defense. It has always been, until the modern era, the principal reason for government expenditures. In fact, this 1832 or 1833 experience where the pension expenditures rose to a quarter of the budget, that was only in one or two years. After that, the pension expenditures declined quite rapidly and fell to down below 10% of the budget, during the latter part of the 1830s, 1840s, and so forth. And so, there was a real spike in spending as a consequence of the benefits. It turns out that these benefits were made retroactive, about 18 months of retroactive benefits; and that's what caused the spike. But most government expenditures back then, and until, I would say, the 1970s, were on national defense. |
| 13:11 | Russ Roberts: So, my favorite fact in the book--and this is great for cocktail parties, listeners; this is going to blow you away. It sounds like it's--it's literally impossible; it can't be true. But it is true. And we're going to finish up our conversation about veterans' pensions, which is this early period of the 19th century in entitlements spending by the Federal government. The Civil War ends in 1865. And, Union soldiers only get pensions--and you'll tell us how that evolved in a minute. But think about this: that's 152 years ago. And yet, today, in 2017, or at least when you were writing your book, there is still someone receiving a pension from the Civil War. Now, a Civil War soldier I guess could have been 18, or 17--I guess they could have lied about their age--it could be 16. But we're now--that person, 152 years later, would have to be 168 years old. So, no human being that we know of in modern times has lived to that age. So, it seems to defy logic that there could be anyone still receiving a pension based on their Civil War service. And yet, we have the story of the great Irene Triplett. So, tell us about Irene. John Cogan: Yes. A truly remarkable story about how Congress, when it legislates entitlements, very often cannot see where these entitlements will go. So, Irene Triplett is--I think she's 87, perhaps 88 this year. And she's still alive. She is the daughter of Mose Triplett [Moses Triplett] and his wife, who was named Elida Hall, and eventually Elida Triplett. But, Mose--actually he was a Confederate soldier during the initial years of the Civil War. And he decided that he would switch sides, near the end of the War. And then, when Congress eventually granted disability pensions to virtually all Civil War veterans, Union veterans, Mose received a pension. In 1924, Mose, who was at that time 78 years old-- Russ Roberts: And should be about to lose the pension. Because, he's going to die. And that's it. 1924--that would be a long time after the Civil War. John Cogan: It is. So, he married Elida Hall. And Elida was 28 years old at the time. And these--what we call these May-to-December weddings were quite common during the period. But, as a consequence of her marriage to Mose Triplett, she qualified for a survivor, a widow's pension. And so she collected the widow's pension. And then, in 1930, they had Irene as their firstborn. And Irene then collected a Survivor's Pension, when her mother passed on. And so, that's the story. And here we are, 152 years later. Russ Roberts: So, she's the only, though. There's only one. John Cogan: Yes. She is. Yes. Yes, yes. Russ Roberts: Do you know who the last one before Irene was? How long has she been--in other words, how long has she been the only Civil War pension recipient? John Cogan: So, that's a very good question. I don't know. But I do believe that there was a Civil War widow, I believe, and perhaps--I think I've got this right--who passed away just over a decade ago. And so, it is amazing how long these pension programs operate. When I started my work, my research on these pension programs, I thought, 'Well, they are different than the modern programs, because eventually the expenditure will die off. The expenditure will recede as the population of wartime veterans of each of the wars declines.' But, eventually can be a very, very long time, as we're seeing with the Civil War pension program. I was going to say one thing: The Civil War pension program's expenditures peaked about 50 years after the Civil War ended. And so, it was a consequence of ever-incremental expansions of eligibility and benefit levels that led to this growth in the pension program. To give you some idea of how it worked, let me take you back a little bit. In the early 1870s--let's say, 7, 8 years after the War had ended, there were about 250,000 Union veterans who were on the disability rolls. And, at that time, most Members of Congress thought that this was the peak of the program. That, anyone who had been disabled in wartime service would have come forth to apply for benefits. Well, it turned out that that wasn't so. By the 1890s--so, 20 years later--there were almost a million recipients of Civil War pensions. And so the incremental expansions of eligibility are reflected in those two numbers. Russ Roberts: And the thing I found interesting is that, you know, they started off, you had to be disabled during the War; then it was just 'You were disabled some time. You got drunk and you fell off your horse,' or whatever. Then you still got a pension. And that was a change. It wasn't like they pretended they got hurt in the war. They liberalized the definition. I don't mean to push your expertise too far, John, you know, trying to find the second Irene Triplett. I apologize for not warning you before we talked. But, I've got a tougher question for you. Do you have any idea what Irene Triplett's benefit check is these days? John Cogan: Yes, I do. I can't say too precisely, but I think it's a rather modest sum. I think it's around $72 or $73 dollars a month. And so, it's a very modest benefit. Russ Roberts: Because they made a mistake--from Irene's perspective, they never indexed it for inflation. John Cogan: That is correct. Russ Roberts: Which was not a mistake--that mistake was avoided in the future. Maybe we'll get into that. |
| 20:04 | Russ Roberts: So, up till the Great Depression and the Roosevelt Administration, most entitlement programs, maybe almost all, were--at the Federal level--were of this nature. And it's important to point out, just as an aside, because at some point we may be talking about anti-poverty measures: of course, state and local governments were involved in anti-poverty measures before the Great Depression. There was also a lot of private charity before the Great Depression. But what makes the Great Depression important among--many, many reasons--but one is, it's the point where the Federal government gets deeply involved in anti-poverty. Which ends up, in my view, all private efforts to fight poverty that had been in place before. You can debate whether they were successful, ineffective, whatever. But, it certainly is a watershed moment. How else did the Great Depression change--of course, we got Social Security; we got many, many changes. So, talk about Roosevelt's role in the process. John Cogan: So, from an entitlement history standpoint, the New Deal did the following. As you said, Russ, prior to the New Deal, all of the major Federal entitlement programs were programs that benefited individuals that performed some form of government service--either veterans or civil servants. The unique feature of the New Deal entitlements were that the expanded the eligible group of individuals for entitlement program to members of the general population. So, if you turned age 65 and you had work in a covered job, you were now eligible to receive a Social Security check. Unemployment insurance was another example of a entitlement benefit for the general population. Same thing with Welfare. And so, when I think of the history of entitlements and the importance of the New Deal, that is where the New Deal is profoundly important. We saw in each of the earlier entitlement programs this tendency to liberalize the eligibility rules for an entitlement program, so that it ends up covering almost anyone who could be remotely considered to be worthy of assistance. And, that force was now, with the New Deal entitlements, going to operate in a much broader and much bigger way, as these entitlements applied to the general population. And so that is the very, very short break from the past. In the past, it's also the case as we said, these entitlement programs for Civil War veterans, for Revolutionary War veterans--eventually their expenditures subsided. All those we said sometimes took a long time. But, eventually they would subside. With the New Deal entitlements, one cohort of recipients would replace another. The programs would become permanent, with the stock of recipients replaced every generation in the case of Social Security. And so, when you think about the dynamic of each entitlement expansion creating a new base on which future entitlement expansions would be considered--now, we are going to see, with the New Deal entitlements, and subsequent entitlements, this operate the tremendous force, causing entitlement expenditures to grow enormously over the past 70 years. Russ Roberts: But there is something--again, a shocking thing I learned that I was totally unaware of--that, a number of times, President Roosevelt was a vehement restrictor of government spending on entitlements. And that he tried very hard--and sometimes successfully--at limiting entitlement expansions. Talk about what happened there. John Cogan: So, Franklin Roosevelt was obviously a very, very complicated man. And we associate his tenure in office with launching the entitlement state. But, the Franklin Roosevelt of 1933, the year he took office, was a very different man. Roosevelt had campaigned as what I would call a--and [?]--an orthodox economist. He believed that large budget deficits were a, would do damage to the economy. And so, he had pledged to reduce spending as a way of reducing the budget deficit. So, when he got into office, veterans' programs--primarily programs for WWI veterans at the time--were about 25% of Federal spending. So, one couldn't shrink government spending without taking on the veterans' programs. And so, 7 days into office the President asked Congress if they would repeal all of the veterans' entitlement programs--except for the Civil War entitlement. But the entitlement for disability benefits for WWI soldiers to Boxer Rebellion soldiers, to the soldiers of the Spanish-American War, and so forth. And, further, he said that Congress should give him the authority to determine eligibility rules, and set the monthly pension benefit for those who qualified. Congress, 10 days later, gave him that authority, in what is called the Economy Act, or an act which is formally entitled An Act to Maintain the Credit of the United States Government. And so, within the next 3 months the Roosevelt Administration promulgated regulations that restricted eligibility for certain types of veterans. And reduced benefit levels by as much as 25%. So, what Roosevelt accomplished, then, over the next year, was to reduce the veterans' disability rolls by about 50%. A year after his regulations went into place, there were almost 400,000 fewer disabled veterans on the rolls than when the law had been enacted and the regulations promulgated. That action is the largest reduction in any entitlement program in American history. Nothing comes close to it. It was an extraordinary, extraordinary achievement for him. And one that you don't really read about too much in the history books about the New Deal. And, I have to say this about Roosevelt: He was a very, very tough competitor. Congress, after the reductions had been taken, Congress passed numerous bills that would overturn all or parts of the reductions that he had taken. And, he vetoed one bill after another. And badgered the Congress for their attempts to overturn his work. And, through the next 7 years he sustained the action that he had taken in 1933. Russ Roberts: How did he justify those reductions in beneficiaries? I mean, it sounds like a horrible thing: people were disabled and he's cut them off. What was his story? What did he say? John Cogan: So, the group that he was primarily focused on were WWI veterans who were disabled, but their disability had not resulted from their wartime service. So, they had become disabled some time in the 15, 16 years since the War, and had qualified for benefits. We cause them Non-Service-Connected Disabled Veterans. And, Roosevelt's view was, those soldiers had no right to a disability benefit. The Federal government owed them no benefits just for their service. He believed in the idea of a citizen soldier: In a time of war, all citizens were expected to serve their country and defend their nation. If you were disabled during wartime service, of course society was obligated to take care of you. But, if you came out of the war unscathed and were subsequently disabled on the job, in a manufacturing plant or on a farm, or whatever, society owed that soldier no assistance. And so that was his policy argument. It was certainly no different than the policy that the Founders had followed in deciding on pensions for Revolutionary War veterans. So, it had a very, very long legacy. So, that was the main policy argument that he made. He also made the case that the Federal budget deficits would eventually be the ruin of the country, and he made a strong case on the general ground that the deficit had to be reduced. |
| 30:08 | Russ Roberts: Well, he wanted to spend that money on other things. And, of course, you know, that's, in modern times what has happened--we've made a massive decision toward transfers and away from things government used to do as large expenditures of money. At least in percentage terms. And we'll talk about that toward the end. But for now I want to talk about Social Security. Which, really is--the more things change, the more they stay the same. Although it's important to remember that when Social Security was first passed--it's really kind of shocking politically--there were only taxes. There were no benefits. John Cogan: That's right. Russ Roberts: Now, the benefits that were paid, what, 5 years after the program was established?-- John Cogan: Yes-- Russ Roberts: were really quite spectacular for how much people had "put in." But the original idea was, it was an insurance concept that you would be compelled to put aside money, and then the government would take care of you. And of course over time, that changed a lot. The connection between how much you contributed and how much you got back got looser and looser, and it became much more of a redistributive program. But, I want to start in the early days. So, when the program starts, I think in 1936--is that correct, when the first taxes are collected? John Cogan: 1937. Russ Roberts: 1937. So, it passes, I think in 1935, starts [?] in 1936; taxes start getting collected in 1937. But nobody's going to collect a penny until 1941? Is that right? John Cogan: Right. Right. Russ Roberts: And, in 1941, anybody who is eligible--we'll talk about that in a sec--is going to get a very nice check, having only paid taxes for, at most, 4 or 5 years. So, talk about how the original coverage was set up, and the original financing, and how small it was. I was shocked to read that, even by 1946, only 1 in 6 workers over 65 years of age were receiving benefits; and only one third of workers were taxed. So, there was a lot of coverage differences compared to today, where almost everyone is receiving and being taxed. So, give us a little bit of that history. John Cogan: All right. So, the program started out primarily for industrial workers; and large numbers of service workers and farm workers were not covered. And so, it was very, very confined to about, maybe about 50-60% of the workforce was initially covered by the taxes. And, as you said, individuals wouldn't begin to collect benefits until the early 1940s. For a person who was in that first cohort of recipients, on average, they would collect in benefits all of their contributions, and their employer contributions in the first two months of retirement. And after that, they would be living on somebody else's dime. So, from the get-go we had this transfer aspect to the program. And, as you said, it was not that--it was still an earned-right program, in the 1930s, and it wasn't really until the 1950s and 1960s that it became what I think of as a complete transfer program. Russ Roberts: Explain that distinction. John Cogan: So, an earned-right program, or a normal pension program--money would be collected and set aside and invested to finance the future benefits to those that are now paying the taxes. A tax-and-transfer program was one where there is no money set aside: the taxes that are collected today are used to finance the benefits to retirees today. Russ Roberts: Or other things when there is a surplus--which is of course what has happened with Social Security. John Cogan: That's right. That's right. So, it's very interesting. Roosevelt's original idea was that the program be more like a pension program. And so, initially the taxes were set much higher to generate revenues that were much higher than the benefit outlays. And so, a fund would be built up--a big reserve fund would be built up in the Treasury. And that fund could be drawn upon in 1980, or 1985, when there was expected to be a large number of retirees and no large increase in the debt of the U.S. government would be incurred. And so, it was set up more or less like a pension program. But, immediately, there were concerns that the money was being improperly used, that it was going to finance the general operations of government. Others, on the liberal side, said that this money that's being improperly used is being raised through a regressive tax, and therefore was unfair; and that we should use a progressive income tax to finance these types of expenditures. And eventually Congress said, 'The heck with it. We're going to eliminate this large surplus that we built up.' And they did so by immediately expanding the program to cover survivor benefits. The original law did not do so. And they sped up the date at which the first retirees would be able to collect their Social Security benefits. And, of course, they raised the benefit levels for those that were nearing retirement age. And so they had responded to the surplus of funds, just like every previous Congress from the Revolutionary War time to the present had responded to large surpluses: They spent it. But since then, Congress has established what they think of as a pay issue-go policy. So, the taxes that come in today go to pay benefits for those that are receiving the benefits today. From time to time, we get spurts of economic growth as we did in the 1950s and in the 1960s and early 1970s, and surpluses have built up. And Congress has used those surpluses as they had with the earlier pension programs to expand benefits. |
| 36:59 | Russ Roberts: But there is an illusion. And there is a theatrical aspect to this illusion that I did not realize: that the government invests--I can't say it without laughing. And it sounds disrespectful, because there are people who will say with a straight face, very proudly and very adamantly that the government invests that money. But it's an accounting sham. So, explain how that sham works and the theatricality behind it. Because, it's really--I was, again, surprised to discover--I always thought it was a total sham. It's worse than that, in a way. It's a theatrical sham. John Cogan: It truly is. For years and years, all the Social Security Trust Fund was, was a ledger in the bowels of the Treasury Department. Revenues would come in to the Federal government. Income tax revenues would be combined with payroll tax revenues. And the-- Russ Roberts: Money is fungible-- John Cogan: Yes. The accountants would just separate it out--put one pot of money, the payroll taxes that they thought had come in, they would put that into a line or a column labeled Social Security. And they would record the outgo for this program as, in another column. And that's all the Social Security Trust Fund was. But, they established this, for the public, this elaborate system where they would list--every Social Security trustee's report published annually, they would list the so-called investments that the Trust Fund had made in Treasury securities. And the accounting is incredibly detailed. They will list, literally, dozens and dozens of securities that have been allegedly purchased with these funds. When, in fact, the securities that were quote-unquote "purchased," really never existed in the sense they were not marketable Treasury Bills. The height of this folly, or this story, comes in the 1990s. We had large economic growth from 1983 through the early 1990s. And, as a consequence a trillion dollars of surpluses had built up into the Social Security Fund. And, of course, these were all just accounting surpluses. The money had been spent on other activities of government. In any event, Members would return to their districts; and as the trillion-dollar balance in the Fund became known to the public, they would be confronted by senior citizens in their districts, these Town Hall meetings, asking them, 'Well, where is the Trust Fund? You say there's a trillion dollars here. Where is it?' And so Members came back to Washington and the leadership decided that they would create a Social Security Trust Fund. So they passed a law in 1994 that established the Social Security Trust Fund, and a Bureau of the Public Debt building in Parkersburg, West Virginia. And so, the Trust Fund consists of a--literally, of a file cabinet--where non-marketable securities are placed, each quarter, representing the holdings of the Social Security Trust Fund. Now, I want to emphasize that these securities are non-marketable. They cannot be sold in the market. They are not going to be traded in the market. They are basically worthless pieces of paper that are sitting in there. People have asked me: 'Why is this Trust Fund in Parkersburg?' And the answer is that Robert Byrd, at the time, was the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee; and Robert Byrd was a Senator from West Virginia. And there just happened to be a nice Bureau of the Public Debt building waiting for its second floor to be filled with some government activity. And so, that's how we have the Social Security Trust Fund. Russ Roberts: Just to make it clear--these so-called securities, these notes, are pledges that the Federal government will pay back the principal and maybe even some interest at times, I think, to replenish and take care of the Fund. But, of course, it's all just government money. It's not anything real that's set aside. It's just, as you say, a ledger, a transaction ledger that says, 'Oh, yeah, that money is there because the government has promised to pay it.' But, of course, if the government doesn't have the taxable capability to pay it, those promises are not enforceable in any real way. John Cogan: I think that's right. And I think the important thing you said there, Russ, was that there is a Pledge, and all Members of Congress have taken that pledge, that they will replenish the Trust Fund by quote-unquote "exchanging these securities for general revenues of the government." But, as you also said, there's no real economic asset there. The money has been spent. And, so, all we have is a pledge. When people ask, 'Where would we get the money that would be used to replenish the Trust Fund?' the answer is, 'We'd have to go out and we'd have to borrow it in the open, public markets, just as we would if there were no [?]--' Russ Roberts: No Trust Fund-- John Cogan: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Russ Roberts: So it's--I mean, it's just fascinating. Fascinating. I did not know about that West Virginia building. So, it's--well, it's incredible. John Cogan: If you get a chance, you should go visit it. I do believe that George W. Bush actually went out-- Russ Roberts: It's a must-see. Definitely a must-see. |
| 43:14 | Russ Roberts: Now, Social Security is, along with Medicare, going to cause some serious challenges potentially to U.S. fiscal stability in the future. There's a point--I forget where it is; you'll tell me--where Federal entitlement spending passes Defense spending as a proportion of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] and now continues to grow while Defense spending has continued to fall as a percentage, to the point, now, where in 2017, if I have it right, it's something like--Entitlement spending is about 16% of GDP; Defense is around 3-something. John Cogan: Reverse it. The Defense budget is about one sixth of GDP, defense is. Entitlements are about two thirds of-- Russ Roberts: No, no. You are talking about Federal spending. No, of GDP. John Cogan: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're right. Yes. Yes. Russ Roberts: Tell it your way. Go ahead. John Cogan: So, I was just going to say: Entitlements have profoundly changed the priorities of our government. As we discussed in the beginning of this show, Defense was the primary responsibility of the Federal government. And that was reflected in the Budget, where the lion's share of government spending was on National Defense. Now, it's completely flipped. Defense is one sixth of the total, and entitlements are about two thirds of the total. Entitlements, when you go back and look at their growth since WWII, you find that all of the growth--all of the growth, Russ, in government relative to GDP is a consequence of entitlement spending. National Defense and spending on all other programs is about the same or a little bit less than it was in the late 1940s. So, when you think of entitlements as being a financial issue, it is. But it's also a sort of a large governmental issue. You can't understand the growth in government without understanding entitlements. And they have truly, truly changed the priorities of our government from one that was primarily focused on national defense to one that's now primarily focused on transferring hundreds of billions of dollars from one group in society to another group in society. And, most often, without regard to the financial need of recipients. Russ Roberts: So, let me put on my Progressive hat here. Doesn't always fit so well, but I'm doing my best. So, one view of this--by the way, what I was about to say, with the Baby Boomers starting to retire today, and having health challenges, the role of Social Security and Medicare at current benefit levels is going to be increasing over the next 20-40 years, such that there are some serious questions as to whether those promises at the current levels will be kept. Obviously something is going to have to change. Either the taxes are going to have to rise, or eligibility is going to have to be reduced. And we don't know what's going to happen. But, let me play the cheerful Progressive, which is: 'This is all good. Your book's called The High Cost of Good Intentions, and high cost has two interpretations. One is just the budgetary cost. And the other is that it is costly in the more general sense of the word--that it's not always worth it. It's not always a good thing. But I could argue, and I might argue, that this is a good thing. Because, look--we don't need as much defense spending as we used to. We don't need to have as big a standing army. The labor costs of defense are smaller. Yes, there's some technological things we want to continue, say, to invest in; but those are still going to be relatively small in terms of the total size of the Federal government today. Transfers--eh, they are just transfers. It's not regulation. It's not distorting. And, what's the big deal? We'll solve this problem. We'll raise the retirement age to 70 because people are healthier. We'll raise the amount at which Social Security taxes apply--as we've done already. We'll continue to do that. We'll raise that ceiling.' And then, finally, 'We'll stop paying as much to people who have lots of money. Which is nuts, to my mind, that we do that. And we'll solve this problem. And it's a good thing. It's not a crisis. These expansions of eligibility that you are worrying about, it's not so important. It's just government moving money around. What's the big deal?' John Cogan: So, that is actually a very common view--that, all we're doing is moving money around from one group in society to another. And, that there's no, sort of social cost associated with doing so. But I think that's a misguided view. Every dollar of an entitlement expenditure, regardless of how much it helps individuals--and believe me, in my book, I make the case that many of these entitlements, most of the entitlements, in fact, are quite beneficial to society in providing a safety net of assistance and in providing security against poverty. But the reality is, balanced against that, is: Every dollar of entitlement spending ends up producing a disincentive for labor market participation, for work, for investments in human capital. And, when you have an entitlement system as pervasive as ours--and so, how pervasive is it? Well, in 2016, over half of all households were receiving some benefit from at least one Federal entitlement program. If we take out the households that are on Social Security and Medicare, and just limit the population to households that are headed by a person under age 65, the percentage of those households that are receiving assistance from at least one Federal entitlement is 41%. And so, these entitlement programs, every one of them contains, as I said, some work disincentive. Clearly, when you reduce benefits as income rises, as we do with our welfare programs, you create a work disincentive. When you provide Disability assistance to individuals who are temporarily, marginally disabled, you create an incentive for individuals to claim that they are disabled rather than to engage in gainful work. Social Security and Medicare have become incredibly generous. Here's a fact that your listeners may not be aware of. The typical married couple that reaches age 66 today and begins to collect Social Security and Medicare benefits will receive--on average, this is--receive benefits that total $50,000 a year. Now, the median household income of households under age 65 is not much higher than that. And so, the transfer that is being made to senior citizens who arguably are the most well-off demographic group in America, is really, really quite sizeable. The size of that assistance tends to create an incentive for individuals to retire a little bit earlier, to go on part-time employment. And therefore you lose productive workers from the workforce. The payroll taxes that are used to finance the transfer on working individuals in their thirties and forties also creates a work disincentive, or a hiring disincentive, on the part of employers. And you end up with a system that is so large that it invariably now, I think, affects the rate of growth of the economy as a whole. |
| 52:15 | Russ Roberts: Well, I wanted to say something about Social Security till we got waylaid talked about the lockbox, trust fund, theater sham. But, one of the things that deeply bothers me is that, when we talk about tax reform--which is in the news today in 2017, right now--people forget that the payroll tax is part of our tax system. They think of that as sort of a separate thing that sort of funds their old-age retirement. Which, of course, isn't true. That's, again, that's a hoax. That's just literally an illusion. What it means is that, when you cut tax rates, if you are only cutting income tax rates you are only going to cut them for the rich, because the rich certainly the top 5% pay the overwhelming--I think is it, 95% of all taxes are paid by the top--of Federal income taxes--are paid by the top 50%. And so, any tax cut is going to be skewed toward wealthier or richer Americans, higher-income Americans. The problem is that, we should be cutting taxes for everybody. The problem is that the income tax, most people pay zero now. Almost half pay zero. And that leads to a world where government spending is seen to be quite cheap for most Americans, because they don't pay for it. But that's a lie. That's an illusion. In fact, every American, almost every working American pays a healthy amount of taxes through what is almost a flat tax--the employer or employee portion of the payroll tax. Which is, what, 15%-plus right now. Do I have that number right? John Cogan: Yes you do. Russ Roberts: So, 15% tax rate of the combined person, employer and employee share--that's a serious amount of tax. But we don't think about that. And so, we have this very unhealthy political dynamic. So, what I'd want to do--what I'd prefer to do--is roll the payroll tax into the income tax. Eliminate the payroll tax. Raise the income tax rates for some. They are paying them anyway--just, they don't realize, sort of they don't see it as dramatically or they think they are being, it's being set aside for them. Which isn't true. Force people to see that they are actually paying. Which is a good thing. And then, when you cut rates, cut everybody's rates. Cut rates of people who are making $40,000 a year but still paying their 7.5%, 7-point-something plus their employer's 7-point-something which probably comes out of their wages. And then you could have--you could talk about real tax reform. But the current system--so, the first point I want to make is that that's incredibly destructive, I think, to the political process, that dishonesty. Second point I want to make--and this is a subtler point, and I apologize for lumping them together, but they go together in my mind--is that, you are making the point, which I think is very important, that when we think of entitlement, we think of helping disadvantaged, poor people, disabled people. Well, a lot of people who get these checks are not poor or disabled. Like you say. They are wealthy elderly people who happen to have paid Social Security taxes when they were younger. However, if you are going to help the poor, in general you are going to have to structure a program--if you want to have some kind of work incentive you are going to have to structure that program so that some non-poor people, people above the poverty line, get some portion of the benefits. That's not true of Social Security. That's not necessary at all. So, I understand the argument that we have to help some people who are, say, 20- or 30- or even 50%-above the poverty line, because if we phased out benefits sharply right at the poverty line, we'd kill the incentive to take work that paid just a little bit more than that. Because you'd be losing all your benefits. So, we have to phase that in slowly, or phase it out slowly. And, as a result, some people above the poverty line get money that's supposed to go to poor people. That's inevitable in designing an anti-poverty program. But Social Security is not inevitable--that everyone is entitled to it, rich and poor. And I think that's just a terrible political mistake going forward. And I think--well, I'm done. I'm rambling on. You can respond to any of that, all of it, whatever you want. John Cogan: Well, I couldn't agree with you more about Social Security being very, very different from the kind of program that would protect individuals from impoverishment and old age. It's really become so distorted over time. And most of the Social Security money has very, very little to do with poverty alleviation or poverty prevention. A very, very significant chunk of it, and other benefits, go to individuals in the middle class. And when we start thinking about how do we avoid this large increase in government spending that's coming as a consequence of the Baby Boomers' retirement, we should be looking at Social Security and its structure, both on the tax side, as you've pointed out, and on the benefit side. And, right now, we have a program that, the higher your wages during your working life, the more benefits you get out of Social Security. So, any inequality in wages during working life translates into inequality in retirement life. Most of the individuals that receive Social Security are not impoverished. And so, the place to start, I think, is, as you said, with going back to the original notion of Social Security, which would be a anti-poverty program, and think about feathering down of the level of benefits as a family's income rises, even during their retirement years. And when I make that observation, I always get the response back, 'But I paid into the program!' And I say, 'But you didn't.' Those benefits went to pay for your mother's and father's Social Security benefit. Not yours. And, you paid into Food Stamps. You didn't get your money's worth out of that, either. You paid into defense. You don't always get to use that, either. That's called taxes. It's the way the system works. Why you feel a claim on Social Security benefits simply because there was a program that alleged that you were putting aside money for your own retirement when in fact you weren't--unlike, say, your private savings, which, yeah--that I'm going to take. I'm happy to take that. I saved; I did without consumption so I could have money when I got older. But the government forced me to pay for other people's benefits. And the word 'Vietnam,' by the way, and other things that had nothing to do with Social Security, they used that money for farm subsidies and everything else. And the fact that we had a thing, that we had a, this theater that said it was for me is a--it's theater. So, just get with the program, folks. Now my angry listeners over the age of 65 are going to tell me that I'm wrong. But I think I'm right. John Cogan: Well, the fact is that for today's retirees, they have paid only for about 2/3rds of their Social Security and retirement benefits. If you grant them the idea that their payroll taxes were set aside. It would still be the case that if you only gave them what they paid in to the system, plus a 2 or 3% rate of return, they would only get 2/3rds of the benefits that they are now getting. The second point--and I think this is really important for your listeners that may be getting angry--is: They have to think about who is actually paying for their benefits now. Russ Roberts: My kids! John Cogan: Exactly. Exactly right. It's their kids. It's individuals that are in their 30s and 40s that are trying to raise a family; send their kids to school. That's where the money for their benefits is coming from. And if they keep that in mind, they might think, 'Well, gee, maybe I could do with a little bit less of my Social Security benefit.' If it results in a reduction in the tax liability that's levied on younger workers. But it has to be, kind of, together. There has to be a concomitant reduction in that payroll tax. And that might be a way of phasing it out, and achieve your goal, Russ, of getting rid of the payroll tax altogether and having a uniform treatment of income for the purposes of taxation. |
| 1:00:49 | Russ Roberts: Well, I think it's appropriate at this point in the conversation to quote the great French economist Frederic Bastiat. He said, "The State is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." And I think that's the worry, for me. I don't know--when people worry or express concerns about the size of entitlements, I really do feel--you are denting me a little bit. But I generally feel that of all things government does, giving money to old people is not the worst thing. Even with the disincentive to work, I just, I don't know how large that is. And I'm talking about the disincentive both to the recipients and the tax-payers who finance it, of course. Of all the distorting things the government does--transfers are--I accept your point that there is a distortion. But it's relatively small compared to certain regulatory interactions, interventions, and other things that the government does. But I do worry about the long-term trend. So, you know, if we think about--there's a lot of people interested now in a guaranteed annual income, a universal basic income, sometimes called, where everyone again, rich or poor, to avoid incentive problems, would get and phase out problems--everyone would get the same amount from the government. And there does--there is at some point, a point where the government "can't afford that." And where more productive and legitimate uses of government money are not going to be available because the budget isn't there. How worried are you about that--about this entitlement train continuing, to speed up? And potentially creating something more catastrophic than just the distortions that you are worried about, that I may be a little less worried about? John Cogan: Yeah, well, very concerned. There are about almost 50 millions persons age 65 and older today in the United States. In 20 years, there's going to be about 80 million. Russ Roberts: At least. John Cogan: At least. Russ Roberts: So, health care might, innovation might make that a bigger number. I don't know. John Cogan: I think you're right. I think it very well could run up higher than 80 million because of health care innovation. That increase is going to drive Federal spending, if we don't do anything about entitlements, to levels that are just unprecedented in world, peacetime history of the United States. And it's not a temporary expenditure. It's a permanent, large increase in government spending. In 15 years, if we try to finance that level of government spending with taxes, you'd have to raise each and every tax in the Federal tax code by 33%. If, instead, you decided you were going to finance the increase in expenditures by debt, you would end up with a debt that is in excess of 100% of GDP. Now, I have to say: The consequences of this are a little bit uncertain. That is, we are going in to uncharted waters when we get to tax levels that high or debt levels that high. But, I'd say this: Economics teaches us that high tax rates of the sort that we would experience are detrimental to economic growth and detrimental to improvements in our standard of living. History teaches us that debt levels in the neighborhood of 100% or more of GDP run the risk of creating large financial crises for a country. And so, although we are going into uncharted waters, I think both economics and history should tell us, 'Beware,' and 'Start taking action now to rein in the growth of these entitlement programs,' so we don't end up in either a stagnating economy with high tax rates and declining standards of living, or financial crises. And so, the time to get moving is now. The ship of state moves very, very slowly, as we've seen. And so the time to take on these entitlement programs is now, before we get to a point where they threaten our future prosperity. |
John Cogan of Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about Cogan's book, The High Cost of Good Intentions, a history of U.S. entitlement policy. Cogan traces the evolution of government pensions beginning with Revolutionary War vets to the birth and evolution of the Social Security program. Surprises along the way include President Franklin Roosevelt as fiscal conservative and the hard-to-believe but true fact that there is still one person receiving monthly checks from the Civil War veterans pension program. The conversation concludes with Cogan's concerns over the growing costs of financing social security payments to baby boomers.
READER COMMENTS
SaveyourSelf
Dec 11 2017 at 11:30am
John Cogan 02:40 “…What you see in modern entitlements. All of the same patterns. Incremental expansion of benefits occurring usually when there are times of budget surpluses. Each expansion tends to be permanent.”
Russ Roberts 1:01:30 “Of all the distorting things the government does transfers are…I accept your point that there is a distortion, but it is relatively small compared to certain regulatory interventions and other things that the government does, but I do worry about the long term trends.”
Todd Kreider
Dec 11 2017 at 12:00pm
I enjoyed listening to this discussion but knew from the moment I saw the title that it would likely make little sense toward the end when the future would be discussed.
At 46:30 Russ says the entitlements for baby boomers will keep going up for “the next 20 to 40 years.” Obviously something’s going to have to change: either taxes are going to have to rise or eliibilities will have to be reduced” yet this assumes no significant changes in medical technology or the costs of those technologies including far better preventative breakthroughs from 2018 to 2058.
At 1:03:00, Russ and the guest agree that in 2037 there could be more than 80 million over 65 due to health care innovation. I agree, but they didn’t include how much healthier everyone those over 65 will be by then, which would be a huge savings starting not in the 2030s but in the 2020s.
For the past 15 years, I have not understood why economists assume little to no health breakthroughs over several decades as the CBO did in 2007 by extrapolating out to 2085(!) A couple of years after that crazy future health care costs report was released, it warmed my heart to read that those economists fought to project to only 2025 – but unfortunately they bowed to political pressure instead of resigning from the study.
In 2010, economist Tyler Cowen said he didn’t see any breaktroughs coming in medicine before 2030. Yet at just 2017, there have been significant advances in stem cell therapy for stroke victimes and heart patients in trials, breakthroughs in cancer immunotherapy, and CRISPR has become a household name.
Jeremy
Dec 11 2017 at 1:59pm
How are entitlements managed in Canada, UK, Australia (or any other country ranking above the US on the Index of Economic Freedom)? Are there any methods currently practiced to ensure agreement definitions can not be altered, widened, and remain well funded? Thanks for another interesting podcast
Bob
Dec 11 2017 at 3:24pm
As in previous interviews, Russ is dismissive of the notion that Americans who have paid into Social Security and Medicare for many, many decades now have a reasonable expectation that they should receive something akin to the benefits that they have been promised. I don’t think most Americans view receipt of benefits after their payment into those programs as societal charity, or similar to the after-the-fact pension programs discussed on the program. And given the expressed concerns with incentives, what would be the impact of penalizing Americans who saved to supplement their Social Security if, as the discussion suggests, they see their Social Security payments reduced or ended so that those who did not save are paid? And how will an aging American obtain medical care? No private plan would ever insure the elderly without massive premiums. And the opinion that the bulge of Baby Boomers would necessarily lead to a permanent level of expenditure is not logical. A bulge is just that; after the bulge passes through, expenditures are reduced. I could not help but conclude that the concern expressed on the podcast are less financial and more based on a philosophical concern that government-run programs are inherently bad.
Max Ghenis
Dec 11 2017 at 4:27pm
Around 55:10 Russ says:
“If you’re going to help the poor, in general you’re going to have to structure programs, you want to have some kind of work incentive, you’re going to have to structure the program such that some non-poor people, people above the poverty line, get some portion of the benefits. That’s not true with Social Security, that’s not necessary at all. So I understand the argument that we have to help some people who are, say 20 or 30, 50 percent above the poverty line, because if we phased out benefits sharply at the poverty line we’d kill the incentive to take work that paid just a little bit more than that because you’d be losing all your benefits. So we have to phase that in slowly or phase it out slowly and as a result some people above the poverty line get money that’s supposed to go to poor people. That’s inevitable in designing an antipoverty program.
But Social Security is not inevitable that everyone is entitled to it, rich and poor. And I think that’s just a terrible political mistake going forward.”
I see no reason why the relationship between phase-out rates and work incentives would differ between Social Security and other antipoverty programs. The time lag may produce some irrationality, but we’d still expect distortions if we cut off Social Security for people earning or worth above a certain amount.
Roger Barris
Dec 11 2017 at 6:26pm
At the beginning of this podcast, Russ talks about the failure of governments ever to use budgetary surpluses to reduce taxes. I have a counterexample which illustrates an important point.
When I was living in Switzerland a few years back, a previously private commodities firm (Evercore) went public. It was based in a nearby town, where many of the larger shareholder/employees also lived. Like many towns and cantons (the Swiss equivalent of states), the town had a small wealth tax. Although the percentage was small, the increase in taxable assets from the IPO was so large that it still meant that there would be a large increase in the tax collected.
What did the Swiss town do with the windfall? It immediately cut taxes for everyone. The reason why is simple: Switzerland has a highly federalized system of taxation and expenditure, in which only about 1/4-1/3 of taxes are collected and spent at the federal level. All the lower levels of government, cities and cantons, are therefore actively competing for businesses, employees and the tax dollars they provide. Like any good business, the local town saw the windfall as an opportunity to steal a march on its competitors by reducing its prices (ie., taxes).
The secret is competition, which is the key factor in Switzerland’s incredibly effective government sector. This is also the strongest argument for federalism. It allows citizens to use the only truly effective vote they have: the one that uses their feet.
Dr Golabki
Dec 12 2017 at 12:10am
@Bob
I think the problem with the argument that baby boomers paid into these programs is that they already spent the money (and then some).
This is the Baby Boomer situation:
A child wants a new bike that costs $100, and is told by his parents that he’ll have to earn the money. He does chores and earns $20 a week.
“Great” he thinks, “I’ll have my bike in just 5 weeks”.
He goes out to celebrate and ends up spending $25 dollars at the ice cream shop. So he asks his parents for an advance on this allowance and his parents agree since he did such a good job the first week. 5 weeks later he’s asked for several more advances and not only has failed to save $100 for the bike, but actually is in debt to his parents for $25. At dinner the child asks his parents to sit down and talk. His patents look at each other sagely, certain that their child is about to apologize for his profligacy.
“Do you have the $25 you owe?” they ask.
The child looks up surprised, “no”, he says.
“When will you be able to pay it back?”
“Never” the child says.
The parents are understanding… knowing their child has learned a hard lesson. “Alright – we love you… you don’t have to pay us back, just as long as you’ve learned a lesson about…”
Interrupting the child says, “Of course I’m not paying you back”.
Shocked the parents ask “Then why did you want to have this talk?”
“Because I want to know where my bike is?”
The parents look at each other, “we don’t owe you anything and we already told you, you have to earn the bike.”
The child explains, “I did earn the bike, I worked 5 weeks for $100 to pay for the bike. The other $125 dollars I spent was money I borrowed from you. And we’ve already agreed I’m never paying that back.”
Point is… I don’t mind that Baby Boomers can’t pay for what they consume. It’s not ideal, but it’s human nature. It’s that + the indignation that gets under my skin.
Meyer Jacobson
Dec 12 2017 at 1:11am
John Cogan argues that the high amount of the social security benefit to married couples creates a disincentive to work.
Contrarian view: Govt purposefully is trying to incentivize older workers to retire to make room for the next generations of workers. Private firms such as accounting firms and law firms require partners to retire to make room for the next generation of talent
James Pass
Dec 12 2017 at 7:19pm
This discussion seemed more like a critique of Social Security and Medicare than a history. That’s fine as far as it goes, but complex topics require much more than a mere hour. I don’t know how much detail Mr. Cogan’s book offers.
There are experts who say that Social Security and Medicare are doing okay and would be fine in the future with a few tweaks. There are experts who disagree. I would like to see substantive discussions between experts on both sides.
In another comment, Jeremy asks a good question about entitlements in countries like Canada, UK, and Australia.
James Pass
Dec 12 2017 at 7:45pm
Response to Dr. Golabki:
I don’t see how your story explains how the Social Security Trust Fund works (or doesn’t work).
Social Security funds are invested in US bonds. The federal government offers many kinds of bonds to investors. Yes, of course, the money invested in government bonds is being used in various ways. If the US government was using all of the money invested in bonds in order to indulge in ice cream and other delights, how do you explain the willingness of investors, both domestic and foreign, to invest in US bonds? How can you claim that the US bonds invested in the Social Security fund are spent and therefore useless without also pointing out that ALL US bonds are spent and therefore useless?
It’s a complex topic and I fear it can’t be explained by simple stories about boys, bikes and ice cream.
Eric
Dec 12 2017 at 10:27pm
Thanks for making that excellent revealing observation!
Dan Mitchell has a video on Saving Social Security with Personal Retirement Accounts in which he points out 28 Nations With Personal Accounts that give much better returns to people based on defined contribution, investment, and personal ownership (it really is your money), including Hong Kong, Singapore, the U.K., and Australia, which gets special mention.
If the government were to have a sustainable mandatory retirement program, replacing Social Security with something like what these other nations are doing would give great results.
But what if the mandatory choice of a retirement program were removed and we returned to the original intent of insurance for those who outlived their savings?
Russ talked about the Universal Basic Income (UBI) idea, but Milton Friedman recommended instead the idea of a Negative Income Tax (NIT). The NIT doesn’t pay people who are already wealthy by other means (while Social Security or the UBI would).
A Negative Income Tax could potentially replace the crazy quilt of all poverty programs as well as Social Security with a payment that is gradually phased out as one’s income increases (or grows as income falls). That would avoid the welfare trap that penalizes work and income and promotes dependency. Why have a separate system for Social Security?
Meyer Jacobson
Dec 13 2017 at 2:01am
Russ criticizes those that complain about reducing social security benefits stating that they paid in and they want what is owed to them. Russ argues that taxpayers are viewing it through a fictional lens and that what they paid was tax and funded the government and they do not have an account with their money it.
While it is true that payroll tax is just a flat tax and is used to fund the government just as the income tax. The government continues to hoodwink taxpayers and sell them on the view that they are paying into an annuity. Why shouldn’t the government should be held to that “promise.” Why wouldn’t promissory estoppel apply, in the moral sense (I understand that in the legal sense it probably does not apply)?
It is possible that taxpayers would never have agreed to pay an additional 15% flat payroll tax on top of an income tax system. Its terrible governance to allow the government to continue to lie to its citizens like that.
My view is that as long as the government continues to con citizens into thinking that the payroll tax and social security are akin to an annuity, the government is obligated to treat it as such. While discerning taxpayers understand that it is not akin to annuity, it is clear that from the beginning the government is trying to make taxpayers believe that it is an annuity system. One example is the yearly “statement” that taxpayers receive which lists their expected benefits (if congress keeps the current laws). Isn’t one of the points of the statement to trick taxpayers into viewing social security/payroll taxes as an annuity.
A second point. Russ advocates for only paying social security to those that need it. I assume that social security has such alot of public support because everyone knows they too will get it one day and because it isn’t viewed as welfare. The day it is viewed as just welfare for the poor is the day its public support erodes and is lumped in with other poverty reduction programs, which are under constant attack.
I am of the view that limiting eligibility to those that truly need and reducing the amounts paid out is a good idea and hopefully will allow civil society and programs to support the elderly to flourish. However, I also think that there are many people who want there to be wide and deep support for the social security system which (they think) will ensure its long term success.
By paying everyone social security there is wide and deep support for social security from most types of voters.
Kevin Ryan
Dec 13 2017 at 7:16am
Having listened to this podcast, I had a quick skim of the Wikipedia article on US Social Security, which I would commend to others:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)
I have a few observations:-
1) I am in the school that believes the OASDI, as well as similar ‘pay as you go’ mechanisms in many other countries, to be a Ponzi scheme – albeit not a pure one. The extent to which people are winners or losers in this scheme is obviously driven by the balance between their payments in (through additional tax of some type) and out, and is a function of their age;
2) This is one of greatest financial scandals ever. It is accommodated by accounting rules that allow the economic reality of the promises made by such programmes – lifetime annuities – to be hidden;
3) It seems that many people realise the nature of these programs. Normally this would be enough to cause a Ponzi scheme to crash as the members in the know seek to get their money out. However this is not possible with these programs as members can only get a payout through their regular payment from the scheme after they pass the retirement age. There is consequently an increasing incentive, as workers age, to keep quiet about the problems and hope that they get their pensions before it collapses. (I am in this position myself in the UK – paid in for more than 40 years, and 2 years away from any pay out). Obviously politicians are not going to be open as they don’t want to trigger the collapse on their watch;
4) As the Dan Mitchell video, posted by Eric, points out, switching now to a pre-funded approach would have massive transitional costs – or put another way the deficit of the current approach would become more transparent;
5) Universal Basic Income was mentioned in passing in the podcast, but I don’t see how this can help the position in any significant way
Emerich
Dec 13 2017 at 11:36am
Excellent podcast. The comments and discussion above obscure the most important lesson from all this: All entitlements grow in size; they grow faster than the original sponsoring and advocating politicians claimed; they even grow faster than opposing politicians warned; once enacted, they give rise to powerful interest groups, and become permanent; and the truth about their costs is obscured via deceitful accounting and any other means neccessary.
Dr Golabki
Dec 13 2017 at 1:37pm
@james
There’s an extended discussion in the podcast about why the “investments” you’re referring to aren’t real investments in any meaningful way.
The boy thinks the money he’s earning is for the bike, but the money he’s spending is a loan. He doesn’t understand that money is fungible.
Dr Golaki
Dec 13 2017 at 1:45pm
@eric
Social security, disability, unemployment, and other programs provide a safety net for people who are not working.
A negative income tax cannot replace that.
James Pass
Dec 13 2017 at 1:51pm
Response to Kevin Ryan:
How would the collapse of the “Ponzi schemes” in the US and the U.K. occur? In the US, would employees and employers suddenly refuse to pay FICA taxes? Or would the collapse originate from a government refusal to pay promised entitlements?
Human nature being what it is, any retirement system involves mandatory inputs. Some countries, such as the U.K. and Australia, give people more control over how their mandatory inputs are invested (similar to 401K plans in the US).
Some people (like Eric in his comment above) say that the pension systems in the U.K. and Australia are superior to the US system because they get better returns on their inputs. But about three-quarters of retirees in the U.K. and Australia qualify for government benefits. Some of them spend their “private” pensions very quickly and some of them made poor investment choices, so they fall back on government benefits similar to the US means-tested welfare system. To me it seems like six of one and half dozen of another.
It’s a complex topic. Modern societies don’t like the notion of letting old (and young) folks die for lack of food, shelter and medical care.
Jonathan Spence
Dec 13 2017 at 4:38pm
Like Kevin I am from the UK.
The UK system is described as National Insurance and was originally sold as insurance. Contributions (premiums) provide entitlement. Premiums were capped, as it was expected that payments would have a natural limit.
With respect to how a colapse of the “Ponzi” scheme could happen, well as I recall there was some difficulties in America over a tax on tea. Blood on the streets type trouble. I recall blood on the streets type trouble in the UK over a tax change.
Dare I sugest that if the state adopted the attitude that Russ did there might be VERY serious events in the UK.
Let us be clear, in the UK people have not just been taxed but in some cases paid additional money in the belief that those who dictate the law will abide by their contract.
For the others who RIGHTLY point out that the expense can be huge, I can only say that they are right. There is a srong argument that we do need to roll back and reduce the costs. How we “square the circle” is a big problem and I’d admit it.
That said I believe we have absolutly one and only one response if the state reneges upon the social contract that we were ASSUMED to agree to.
It’s not a Ponzi scheme, if Russ has his way it becomes a “Protection scheme” rather than insurance. Ie “something bad will happen if you don’t pay” but if you do pay and something bad does happen tough!
stuart
Dec 13 2017 at 8:30pm
At times I have been skeptical of things Roberts said, particular on public funding of k-12 schools. That said, I’ve never really disagreed with what he has said, until now. I’m not even sure everything was factually correct.
Contrary to what Roberts says, not everyone pays a “healthy” amount of federal tax. While all workers pay the payroll tax, many get as much or more back as an earned income credit. The lowest quintile has an overall effective federal rate of about 2 or 3%. Of course for some it is less.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-average-federal-tax-rates-all-households
The trust fund might not be the same as bonds but the difference really isn’t as great as Roberts and Cogan make out. While it is true that the accounting is on a govt balance sheet instead of by marketable bonds, that makes no difference that I can see. It certainly isn’t a sham. Are the marketable bonds any more real? World markets would certainly be in turmoil if the US govt didn’t pay on marketable bonds. Does anyone think there would be no turmoil if the govt didn’t honor debts to the social security trust fund? Is the govt more obligated to pay off marketable bonds than the trust fund? I don’t think so. Argentina has just this year sold 100 year bonds after defaulting on its debt just over a year earlier and something like 6 times in the last 100 years. (There’s a story for a podcast, Russ)
Cogan differentiates between defense spending and entitlements but makes no mention of the VA and retirement benefits for former defense employees (civilian and military.) Are these defense spending or entitlements? Of course they are both but he doesn’t explain how he accounts them. These are not small or minor parts of the budget.
Greg G
Dec 13 2017 at 9:34pm
I am always surprised when critics of government fiscal policy want to lead with criticism of Social Security as was the case in this podcast. When judging any government program it is always important to ask the question: Compared to what?
Compared to most other government spending, the Social Security System is a model of fiscal prudence. It was passed with a dedicated tax that is required to pay for the benefits paid out with taxes raised and interest on bonds that represent the savings on interest that the government would have otherwise had to incur paying to other lenders if those funds weren’t available.
I don’t see why it’s any kind of a scandal that the bonds held by the Social Security System aren’t tradable. If the law was changed to make them tradable there would be plenty of buyers just as there are for all other forms of Federal debt.
If I buy a Treasury Bond for my IRA, that purchase will be universally recognized as just about the safest and most cautious investment I could make. If I effectively buy the same type of debt from the same borrower through the Social Security Trust Fund some people will view it as total recklessness.
Like it or not Social Security is one of the most popular and successful government programs of all time. It was intended to keep many seniors out of poverty and it has. It was intended to pay for itself and it has so far. It was intended to be popular and it is. It has been tweaked in the past with a combination of tax increases and benefit cuts and there is no reason to think that couldn’t be done in the future. Unsustainable trends will not be sustained.
No one knows how much Federal Debt is too much but people have been freaking out about it since Hamilton had the Federal Government assume the debt of the states which turned out to be a pretty good idea judging by the future faith and credit of the U.S. government in the marketplace.
For now individual private investors voluntarily investing their own money still view the U.S. government as the best credit risk in the entire world. And that just is the standard we free market enthusiasts are supposed to value most isn’t it?
Kevin Ryan
Dec 14 2017 at 5:58am
Response to James Pass
I don’t know if you are still wanting a reply from me, or if Jonathan’s response was sufficient for you, but here goes:-
My point was that these programmes will not collapse, at least not in the way that normal “Ponzi schemes” do. However governments will increasingly see the need to do something, in particular to address the most transparent problem of rising annual outgoings not being matched by contributions – with solely increasing the rate on the nominally matching “tax” no longer viable.
Hence, as is widely acknowledged, I think, governments will increasingly introduce measures to limit the outflows – reducing payment levels in real and/or nominal terms, raising the starting age, limiting or eliminating payments to those with other income or assets. Probably some combination of the above. And of course some of this has already happened in some countries.
If these measures are sufficiently powerful to have a material impact then there are going to be a lot of unhappy people. If you like they are going to be disillusioned at the way the Bastiat quote referenced by Russ is working out for them. People of all ages will have something to complain about.
I have no crystal ball as to how this will work out. But, for example, it does seem to me it would be logical for people entering the workforce and who expect to be highly paid, to lobby to be excluded from the system entirely, and which would further undermine its economics/reveal its defects.
Kevin Ryan
Dec 14 2017 at 8:29am
@ Greg G
I agree with you that it seems strange that there is focus upon the tradability of the bonds held by the Social Security System as a critical issue. Although it would be better in principle if these bonds/debt were tradeable, I do wonder how much it matters in practice as I can’t imagine the circumstances in which the Trust itself would be allowed to sell such securities on the open market, but in which the government could not pay up on its non-tradeable obligation.
It seems to me that, from a more commercial basis, there are two dimensions in considering the financial health of the fund – the strength of the covenant/assets held by the Trust, and their numerical sufficiency.
On the first, and putting aside the question of whether US govt bonds are a good asset to hold against the risk of the US govt failing to pay on its promises, I see an ascending hierarchy. 1) no explicit legal obligation; 2) Non-tradable US govt debt; 3) Tradable US govt bonds issued to the Trust; 4) Tradable bonds and other assets purchased in the market.
To me the most important dividing line is between 3) and 4). But 4) is a non-runner in this situation as it means the funds cannot be spent elsewhere by the government, which frustrates the realities of the way in which the Social Security financing has been operated. (I assume that the increase in the govt bond under the current system is accounted for as in increase in government debt – although perhaps I have misunderstood the system).
On the quantification dimension my brief reading on the subject leads me to conclude that the Fund is the cumulative overall annual surpluses of the system. However this is very different to what the System is “promising” to pay out – which could be quantified by the sum of expected lifetime net benefits (ie net of Payroll Tax) of all living members of the scheme (and relevant survivors?), whether now working or not. And also different to what people might think they are due as a minimum – the sum of cumulative net payments in, (possibly adjusted for a rate of return) for all living members of the scheme (or relevant survivors), whether now working or not, and for whom this figure is positive.
But perhaps, again, I have misunderstood.
Eric
Dec 14 2017 at 12:25pm
A negative income tax certainly can provide a safety net (without the current welfare trap) because the people with no income at all (i.e. “people who are not working”) would receive the maximum payment from a negative income tax, while those with some income would receive proportionately less benefit.
Dr Golabki
Dec 14 2017 at 2:31pm
One issue I wish had been discussed more is the justification of these wealth transfers, because I think it gets past the “goverentment is big and wasteful becuase it’s the government” point. A few options…
Charity – rich people don’t like seeing poor people suffer, therefore we help out the poor. Here I think it’s hard to justify government involvement on these grounds, but I think you have to accept that there could be “justifiable” outcomes that are fairly unpleasant if people aren’t suffientently generous. On the other you could argue for charity as the redistributive mechanism on efficiency grounds even if you think the underlying justification for the transfer is one of the below.
Utilitarianism – the function of government, is to provide the greatest good to the greatest number. You want to leave enough market forces to continue growing the pie, but beyond that you just want to raise as many people out of poverty as possible. Seems like a justification for universal basic income.
But takes all the personal agency out.
Citizenship – there are certain basic rights nessasary for full citizenship and we need some transfers to ensure this. You can justify universal education on this grounds, and arguably universal healthcare and UBI.
Check on capitalism – if you’re worried that unchecked captalism could lead to a defacto caste system, the transfers are a check against that. In this view the goal is to ensure a high degree of mobility. This justifies universal education, unemployment benefits and possibly universal healthcare and UBI. I find this position most compelling.
Ben Samuel
Dec 15 2017 at 1:05pm
Myer, but the notion that the government is “obligated” is the con! Congress has total authority to revoke any legislation passed by a prior Congress, and it is not remotely bound by prior promises. These are common cons: every time we do a “10 year” budget, all the spending occurs now and cuts are in the future, which the next Congress promptly ignores. Or the notion that courts are “obligated” to uphold precedent, yet the only way precedent is set is by courts changing their mind.
People may be fooled by SS, but they certainly vote as though they know it can go away at the stroke of a pen. SS, by design, pits generations against each other in order to make sure it’s politically infeasible to cut. When you’re young, you’re getting squeezed to cover the older generation. Then when you’re old, you’re going to squeeze the younger generation to ensure your benefits aren’t cut, because you’ve planned your retirement around this government “obligation.”
Seth
Dec 15 2017 at 4:14pm
Has anyone proposed setting a retirement savings threshold?
If you save less than the threshold, you make up the difference with a payroll tax.
For example, if the threshold is 10% and you save 7% of your income in your 401k, then you pay a 3% payroll tax. That 3% goes acts like SS does today, but the benefits will be scaled based on what you paid.
I’m sure there are holes in that…like what happens if there’s a lot of people who are receiving benefits and not many paying in.
But I like the simplicity and that you get to choose. It also seems to align your risk of being underfunded with your habits.
James Pass
Dec 15 2017 at 5:11pm
Response to Dr. Gobalki:
You say “there’s an extended discussion in the podcast about why the ‘investments’ you’re referring to aren’t real investments in any meaningful way.”
Actually, there is no discussion in the podcast that addresses my point about US federal bonds. If I’m wrong please provide a quote.
Yes, there are multiple references in the podcast to the fact that the FICA taxes workers pay are not invested in individual accounts. Both Russ and Mr. Cogan claim that the average American incorrectly believes there are individual accounts.
Both Russ and Mr. Cogan state that the federal government spends the money in US bonds invested in Social Security. They imply that since it’s spent, it’s gone. But the same can be said for all US bonds. So it’s reasonable to ask why the US bonds invested in Social Security are worthless while the much larger amounts of money invested in all other US bonds are not worthless. This point was not addressed in the podcast.
James Pass
Dec 15 2017 at 5:31pm
Response to Kevin Ryan:
Sure, I appreciate your response and I’ll return the favor.
First, it seems like the more we talk about it, the more you back off from calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a criminal, fraudulent and opaque investment operation. If someone wants to claim that Social Security is not sufficiently funded for its liabilities, that’s fine. But it’s not a Ponzi scheme.
Anyone who has done serious reading about Social Security knows about various tweaks to the program. Some additional tweaks are required. People argue over whether the required tweaks are minor or major. Some people think there are better approaches to retirement programs. I’m always interested in good books on the topic. If you have recommendations, feel free. Good books aren’t as good as “crystal balls,” but they’re a lot better than nothing.
Dr Golabki
Dec 15 2017 at 6:19pm
I agree with Russ and John that the government spending tends to grow.
At least part of the reason for that is that governments can barrow from the distant future, decoupling buying from it’s natural counter balance, cost. I think of this as a “taxation without representation” problem, but we are effectively taxing future american citizens who currently cannot vote.
One solution is to require balanced budgets, but there are valid, important reasons to the government to barrow. So how do you provide a counter balance to prevent government overgrowth?
I like the idea (which I posted about here before) of creating a governmental body that can legislate (or at least veto legislation) with a mandate to represent future citizens. It could be a supreme court like body, appointed to very long (or life time) terms. This would also help with Tyler Cowen’s augment that we currently under value growth.
Michael Byrnes
Dec 17 2017 at 8:58pm
The Irene Triplett story is amazing, and reminds me of one of my other favorite stories: that 10th POTUS John Tyler, who was born in 1790, has 2 living grandchildren.
Ben Samuel wrote:
Perhaps not as unfair as it seems, since without the older generation there would be no younger one?
Robert Swan
Dec 18 2017 at 8:42pm
Can’t say much about the U.S. system, but a couple of responses to commenters.
The Australian system is not bad — you have a personal account, often linked to a managed fund (it can be self-managed too), and get concessional tax rates on contributions and distributions because that money is locked up until you reach retirement. But it is your money.
However, private employees have sometimes found that, after their employer has failed and gone into liquidation, a year or two of the employee contributions have been stolen.
Public employees (a pretty large portion of the workforce) are in a similar “pyramid scheme” to the U.S. in that the money is not well partitioned off. In essence the goverments behave like the failing companies and treat the contributions as a line of credit. To date they have honoured the generous terms of their pensions, but the burden is growing.
I think commenter Jonathan Spence has misunderstood how the promise would be broken. It won’t be a sudden “we’re not paying” statement. They’ll start with uncontroversial things — does Bill Gates really need his pension? — and eat it away one small bite at a time.
From how the U.K. government has treated its citizens, have they not already started down that same path?
Jakob Engblom
Dec 19 2017 at 7:44am
Interesting discussion, but with a certain slant towards considering entitlements as “bad” somehow.
I get the sense that there is a fundamental inconsistency in attitude in the US where most people seem to think that “big government is bad”… but also “don’t touch MY benefits/tax breaks/privilege as given by the govt”. This inherently ambivalent attitude appears to be be prohibiting a rational review of the systems.
In countries where the welfare state is generally accepted, it actually seems much easier to keep its costs and sprawl under control. When most politicians agree that it is a good idea in general to take care of people in need, focus can be on actual mechanisms and what works. Rather than getting stuck on ideological discussions around the nature of the state.
The current tax cut from Trump is a perfect example: totally debt-building, and then some random cuts to functions that the prez happens not to like.
Compare that to the Swedish pension reform system where great care was put in to make sure the system is stable and self-financing for the future. Including rules that reduce pensions in case growth is low, and clear delineations on what is tax-financed and what is personal savings that are actually savings. Sure, the taxes resulting are higher… but the system has a far lower chance of blowing up and hurting everyone in the end. It is built with a long view thanks to a general consensus.
That is what good rational government should be about, not populist short-term bones that build up a crazy and unsustainable system. An entitlement system can be well-run and intelligently designed, if you let a professional non-political government bureaucracy think things through.
Robert Swan
Dec 19 2017 at 5:21pm
Did mean to include in yesterday’s comment some details on something commenter James Pass mentioned: that some people in Australia spend their private pensions very quickly after retirement.
They do this because they then satisfy the means test for the government’s old age pension. Its cash payments won’t fund a lavish lifestyle, but its subsidies on pharmaceuticals and travel, car registration, water, even electricity, can be pretty generous. So the pension + benefits has a kind of “minimum wage” effect where you find you might be better off exhausting your private pension. Above a fairly low level, you’re definitely better off with your private pension.
In response to Jakob Engblom’s comment:
Expenditure on entitlements can be viewed as bad by everybody simply because it is on the red side of the ledger. You only want to spend on what is necessary.
You speak about the “welfare state” as if it were one thing, but it clearly isn’t. Different countries have drawn the boundaries on entitlements and obligations in different places. I’m not sure how a whole country decides that this set of boundaries is better than that one. If Sweden managed to get a “general consensus” on its model, that is a thing of wonder.
As a counterexample to Sweden, Singapore springs to mind. Where Sweden has many obligations and many entitlements, and the USA has far fewer obligations and entitlements, Singapore has managed to keep its population reasonably contented with many obligations and few entitlements. A paradox? I think most of the explanation lies in Singapore and Sweden having fairly small populations and people just wanting to get on.
You say, a professional, non-political, government bureaucracy that thinks things through can design a welfare system that works. I don’t disagree, but how would you create such a thing in the USA? Do bear in mind that the USA is idealistic too. Democracy is more pervasive there than elsewhere — in some places voting for Sheriff, DA, Fire Chief — and this inevitably brings politics into the bureaucracy.
What I really would like to know is what’s going on in China. Where is it today on the obligations/entitlements scoreboard? From here, at the moment, it seems to be doing amazingly well.
Gary
Dec 19 2017 at 6:17pm
My comment is in a similar vein of those made by Bob and Meyer above.
I can’t completely agree with Russ’ comments at around the 52nd minute about eliminating the “fiction” about the payroll tax and making it a combined tax.
The concept that cash is fungible has credibility with me, but I don’t think it is completely appropriate in this instance. Social Security benefit ARE based on income earned over I believe the highest 35 years, so a relatively long period of time. And since the payroll tax is a function of that income, there is a significant relationship between the taxes paid and benefits received.
So the benefit rules themselves are significantly different from virtually every other redistribution type program in which the law ties the benefits to need. I think that devalues the fungible argument a bit
That is how the program was marketed to the American people to support it initially, and how it continues to be marketed to gain their support.
So Russ, I think you too lightly sweep aside that idea with the idea of making it a purely need based program.
Secondly, any such move to a complete income tax system as opposed to the somewhat regressive payroll tax would in my view create a new element of moral hazard. People not having ANY skin in the game in terms of paying any taxes is a recipe for even further expanding federal spending to fiscally irresponsible levels.
With the exception of the truly destitute, perhaps the bottom 10% of households, everyone should bear some responsibility for funding the federal government. I think an income tax only system would quickly be manipulated into a structure where a much larger portion of the population would pay nothing. And with no clear cost to them, that would lead to demands for ever more benefits paid by ever fewer citizens.
If the “fiction” of the payroll tax is the only way to have taxes be relatively broad based across the citizenship, then I don’t support eliminating it
Jakob Engblom
Dec 20 2017 at 3:02am
In response to Robert Swan:
The “small population” argument is pretty common when discussing the Nordic model. I would love to know if there is something to it or not… would a smaller population naturally tend to be consensus-driven? But then we have the original welfare state, Germany, which is clearly a big country and still seems to have about the same level of discussion around social issues as Sweden, despite being roughly 8x bigger.
How to build a modern state with a professional bureaucracy in the US is a very good question. It is clear that the US lacks the German tradition of a strong professional non-political state employees. The plethora of elections rather seems to create a system that is less democratic and more tending towards corruption and extremes.
It is just odd how the US works with a mix of antique mechanisms and some cutting-edge technology. Some things change fast, and others are stuck in the 18th century. Sometime, the US can be very pragmatic, but in other cases there are ideological discussions around things like abortions, sex education, homosexual rights that really sound like they belong in the 19th century or a country in the middle east. Not in a modern Western country supposedly dedicated to individual rights. Wasting time discussing issues that feel good rather than moving on and solving the real problems of the economy, equity, and climate change.
But how to get out this situation? No idea, very hard to tell.
Pensions and other welfare state elements in China? Very good question. I believe they are currently in a good demographic spot with few old people relative to workers… but are heading very quickly towards the opposite. Which is where the structures will be sorely tested. Russ, please interview someone on this!
Robert Swan
Dec 20 2017 at 4:56pm
Jakob Engblom,
Small population as part of the explanation is only a guess. I suppose I’m just scaling up my employment experience and the relative numbers of freeloaders or loose cannons in small vs. large companies I have worked for. Population is certainly not the whole story. Just as with companies, it’s perfectly possible for a small country to be badly run.
I don’t think Germany backs you up all that well. Its history is complicated: stable periods of very roughly 20 years at a time followed by big changes. It is presently at the centre of the EU and, while that has been generally very good for Germans, it hasn’t been an unmixed blessing for some of the less wealthy EU members. Should wellbeing in these other nations not come into your reckoning?
As with Germany, the British also had a tradition of “strong professional non-political state employees”. In the formal terms of their employment, British civil servants are indeed non-political. I’m not sure that has translated into an impartial civil service. Perhaps the Germans have kept group-think out of their public institutions, but I wouldn’t bet on that lasting forever.
The relative stability of the USA has no doubt left them with some anachronisms, but I’d not rush to judgement. I recently pointed out here how the French national motto “Liberte, egalite, fraternite” can be viewed as a mapping of the three conflicting political axes of the libertarians, the progressives and the conservatives. The Germans have favoured equality at some cost of liberty and fraternity; the Americans have favoured liberty instead. Who is holding more of the moral high-ground depends quite a lot on the political views of who you ask.
Dan Zemke
Dec 26 2017 at 6:30pm
The US Government sells Treasury Bonds to willing purchasers. They expect to be paid back, according to the stated terms.
The US Government confiscates funding for Social Security, via a payroll tax. Citizens expect to be paid back, according to the stated terms.
The perspective that Bond paybacks are sacrosanct Obligations while Social Security paybacks are flexible Entitlements is interesting. Reducing the payout after accepting the funds would be a breach of faith in either case.
Some claim that future SS payouts will cripple our economy and we need to act NOW! Yet many of the same people feel differently about the latest tax law change. They seem to be saying: Move along, these are not the deficit impacts you’re looking for.
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