OS 2.1

"We should make the Social Security system a source of ownership for the American people," President Bush declared in his 2004 State of the Union speech.

This muddled phrase was apparently meant to amplify the sentence that came before it:

"Younger workers should have the opportunity to build a nest egg by saving part of their Social Security taxes in a personal retirement account."

This is one of President Bush's favorite ideas and it's a central tenet of his evolving "Ownership Society" agenda. His enthusiasm for this idea is undiminished by the fact that it involves magically spending the same $1 trillion dollars twice.

Brad DeLong stated this succinctly in a post Monday:

You cannot — not given current projections — "support" all three of (a) diverting Social Security revenue to young workers' private accounts, (b) maintaining benefits at their current levels and (c) keeping payroll taxes from rising. One of the three must crack.

President Bush purports to believe that all three of these things can be done at the same time — leading DeLong to wonder whether the president is really dumb enough to believe this is true.

I don't know about the president himself, but I do not believe that those encouraging him to promote this idea are stupid. They are simply gambling that the American public is, and that we won't notice that we are being either double-billed or robbed outright.

The White House insists that it wants to do (a), diverting Social Security revenue to allow/require younger workers to create "personal retirement accounts."

Thus — according to Dr. DeLong and to elementary arithmetic — either the benefits that were supposed to be paid with this revenue will have to be cut, or else the amount of Social Security revenue will need to be increased. Or some combination of both.

This is what President Bush means by making the Social Security system a " a source of ownership for the American people." Those who have already paid into the system — who already "own" it — will get less and less, if anything, in return. Those who are currently paying into the system will now be charged twice as much.

This man shouldn't be president. He should be the manager of a Rent-a-Center franchise.