I never thought I'd miss William Safire

After writing a few non-political pieces, new NYT columnist John Tierney has finally decided to end his honeymoon and weigh in with a pair of lousy pieces on social security privatization.

The first one was bad enough, reducing the complexities of the social security debate to an anecdote, and a foreign one at that. Tierney chose to disregard all of the political, ideological, and fiscal hurdles to privatization in favor of drooling over the pension of a Chilean economist. At least David Brooks will look at an entire survey before he makes his sweeping generalizations.

Today's piece unblushingly repeats just about every discredited assumption made in the pro-privatization camp. First, he takes it for granted that it will "shore up the system," though the riddle of how taking money out of the system improves its finances is yet to be solved. Even President Bush speaks of private accounts and solvency as separate issues.

Next he makes the statement that "most workers now pay more to Social Security than to the I.R.S." Discerning the economic truth of this I will leave to Neil, but I'd like to point out the political fallacy here. Pro-privatizers like to make statements about what workers "pay" to Social Security as if it is like the money you pay for your rent or a ham sandwich, as if it is money you are not getting back in some way. It fits with the characterization of tax cuts as "giving back your money" or as President Bush has said with trademark pithy: "It's your money. You paid for it." Payroll tax, like any other tax, is payment for a service. The government isn't taking your money and hopping the bus to Atlantic City.

Next, Tierney acknowledges Social Security's tremendous anti-poverty effects, but qualifies: "As a poverty-fighting program, Social Security is woefully inefficient because most of the money goes to people who aren't poor." He's right, but this "inefficiency" is what makes Social Security an effective anti-poverty program, because if it wasn't so inefficient, it would have been abolished by now. Anti-poverty programs, i.e. welfare in the form of AFDC, that target the poor raise issues of deservingness that make them tremendously unpopular and lead to their demise.

Finally, Tierney tries to assuage critics' fears that without the safety net of Social Security, many individuals could be left with an unsatisfactory pension. He says that the Cato Institute and Congressional Republicans have been talking about a measure to subsidize elderly up to the poverty line if their pension does not meet it.

I have not seen any numbers on such a proposal, but I would say that whether it is a good idea depends on the cause of these pensions running low. At a time when markets are generally kind and the only cause of lackluster pensions is bad market choices or personal injury, the financial obligation to such a safety net would be low. However, in times of market downturn, there may be more retirees with paltry pensions than there is government ability to pay for them. Therefore, this could be increasing Social Security's financial burden, not to mention such direct payments, specifically to the poorest, again raise the issues of deservingness that would put Social Security's very existence in peril. Hmm, why would the Cato Institute and Congressional Republicans be insensitive to such a concern?

I'm glad we're having this Social Security debate in this country. It is a vital program, and any ideas to improve it should be on the table, and though privatization is a bad idea, most of those promoting it mean well. Also, the debate raises issues concerning the balance of personal, community, and government responsibility that need to be discussed as we move from the industrial to the information age. Such a great discussion should not be about winning and losing, so when pro-privatization advocates reiterate their claims in the face of facts to the contrary, it feels more like combat than conversation, and Tierney, in a new place of influence as a NYT columnist, is doing a disservice.

Benedict XVI

I return from extended blogger hiatus to comment on the ascension of Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy as Benedict XVI. There seems to be a lot of disappointment in the blogosphere, among those who would have preferred a Third World figure such as Cardinal Arinze or a moderate such as Cardinal Tettamanzi.

First there is the matter of whether the pope should have come from the Third World, where Catholicism has had recent growth. In terms of where the pope should come from, there were too many factors to be considered to give particular weight to any one place. The church's issues are different all over the world: general decline of religiosity in Europe, diminishment of the priesthood in the US, competition with Protestant evangelicals in South America, and competition and conflict with Islam as it too expands in Africa. Therefore, the geo-politics of the papacy became irrelevant through the variety of challenges faced by what is increasingly a global religion.

The second, more contentious matter is fear of Benedict's social conservatism, concerning abortion rights, gay rights, and the prospect of women in the priesthood. In spite of being a supporter of abortion rights and gay rights, I cannot possibly fault Benedict, or any church figure, for taking these stands. To those taking umbrage, I would reiterate that this is, after all, the Catholic Church, and I don't think I'm too rigid in my thinking to say social reform is not to be expected from it. The Church's stances on abortion, homosexuality, and female clergy are not anachronistic bogeys to be shedded with the passage of time, but rather logical outgrowths from initial faith in creationism and the divinity of Christ.

I see the Church's conservatism on social issues as a positive, in spite of its dischord with my personal beliefs. First of all, to pursue social reform through the Church rather than the government would be to have tacitly given up the larger philosophical notion that we should not be making social policy according to the dictates of any religious faith and instead with respect to individual choice, plurality, and freedom. Secondly, we should take comfort in Church dogma's persistence as an intellectual counterweight to the doctrines of social liberalism. Just as the country would be worse off if the Republican Party collapsed tomorrow, so might the world be without the continuity of the Church.

The final word on the election of Benedict XVI is that we should simply leave it as a matter of trust. He was not elected by the Holy Spirit: Innocent III and Alexander VI can attest to that. However, he was chosen by 117 men who have devoted their lives to the faith and works of Catholicism. The process isn't perfect, as nothing human is, but that does not mean the decision is anyone else's to make but theirs.