Bewildering

The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen report today on a lack of enthusiasm for President Bush's plans to dismantle Social Security in an article headlined "In GOP, Resistance on Social Security."

The subhead reads "Bush Plan Raises Fear of Voter Anger," but the Republicans quoted in the piece by VandeHei and Allen aren't only talking about such political considerations. They also don't think the president's plan makes any sense.

Here's Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn.: "Why stir up a political hornet's nest … when there's no urgency? … When does the program go belly up? 2042. I will be dead by then."

Neoconservative guru William Kristol says many Republicans are "bewildered why this is such a White House priority. … I am a skeptic politically and a little bit substantively."

And here's Newt Gingrich: "Why would you go home tomorrow having cut benefits in Social Security for a problem that might happen in 25 years?"

That's a good question, although as Simmons points out, it's actually a problem that might happen in 37 years. Or, if you use the CBO's still-conservative but slightly less pessimistic figures, 47 years.

Simmons is wrong, however, about what the Social Security Administration trustees have said might happen in 2042. The trustees do not say they expect the program to "go belly up." They only predict, in this, their worst-case scenario, that in 2042 the program will no longer be able to pay 100 percent of current benefits. Even in this scenario, retirees and the disabled could expect, in 2043, to collect 75 percent to 80 percent of their current benefits.

That is why Kristol, Gingrich and so many other members of their party find the president's proposals so bewildering. The White House has floated the idea of changing the way benefits are calculated, thus cutting them by 20 percent or so sooner, rather than maybe later.

The idea, apparently, is that by guaranteeing a cut in benefits today, he would be able to prevent the possibility of potential benefit cuts 37 years from now.

The Post is correct that such an action would likely provoke "voter anger." Destructive stupidity — destroying Social Security in order to save it — tends to do that.