Just give up

John Tierney continues to flail in defense of privatization today, backpedaling somewhat on his Chilean pension piece, but continuing to propagate Social Security misconceptions and silly anti-government rhetoric across the opinion page of the paper of record.

Today's fallacy is the notion is something he's hinted at before, but is now saying outright: that payroll tax cannot be trusted in the hands of Congress. Tierney claims that private savings accounts are preferable because retirees can see the account balance with their own two eyes, as opposed to sending it to the Treasury.

He envisions Congress being unable to make the tax increases or budget cuts necessary to save Social Security as is because of the political risk involved, so it's either go to private accounts or Social Security perishes. First of all, this view is entirely ahistorical. At several points in the past, Congress has done exactly what Tierney is saying it would never do. Furthermore, Tierney's attitude is right in keeping with privatization advocates' denial or ignorance of the wild popularity of Social Security. No matter the political risk of making slightly painful adjustments to the Social Security system, this pales in comparison to the political hara-kiri of allowing Social Security to go underfunded and expire, or even be cut at all. I'm trying to write the last undergrad paper of my life so I'll make it short: not gonna happen, and Tierney needs to stick to the fluff that he writes best.