Social Security

Re Op-Ed Columnist: Played for a Sucker by Paul Krugman: I agree with Krugman. Barack Obama has fallen for the false belief that Social Security is doomed. While Krugman focuses on the politics of this issue, which is "form", I will address the substance.

First, all the ideological doomsters purport to tell us with precision that the Social Security Trust Fund will run out of money by some date, such as 2041. What nonsense! Economists can't predict, with any accuracy, anything about our economy even one year from now! This forecasting business of economists has been shown time and time again to be as reliable as reading tea leaves, astrology, and palm reading. (See Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan".)

In any event, the Trust Fund has been in surplus since it was created, and Social Security law can be modified (if need be) to borrow from the Treasury during any year it is in shortfall, and then pay back to the Treasury in the future years when it inevitably will be in surplus again. This is not rocket science.

I have an even better idea: get rid of the Social Security Trust Fund altogether, along with the payroll tax, and fund SS forever out of a more progressive federal income tax. End of problem!