Pension Panic
Irwin M. Stelzer cautions perceptively against "solutions" to "problems" that are unduly magnified. But Stelzer's most important point is reserved for last: Medicare is a much more serious and increasing problem than Social Security.
But why are we discussing individual investment accounts, with their overwhelming administrative costs? Why not simply invest some fraction of the payroll taxes received in mutual funds, or in a mutual fund established and managed by a government agency or by the Federal Reserve Bank?
The mutual fund could be a mix of bonds and equities, with the mix adjusted to maintain a good compromise between risk and potential return. Or we could have several funds, each administered by a different agency, so as to encourage competition for performance.
R. Murray Campbell
Cohasset, MA
How can we have an informed debate on Social Security when Irwin M. Stelzer asks us to "assume that there is such a thing" as a Social Security Trust Fund ("Social Security Snares & Delusions," Jan. 17)? There is no such animal--a fact necessary to understanding the length of time we have before Social Security becomes insolvent.
We all know how it works: FICA taxes come into the government, which uses the funds to pay current Social Security obligations, and then uses what is left over to pay for tanks, crop subsidies, and the like. The government then writes out an IOU for the surplus it spent and puts it into the "Trust Fund."
But in no real financial, logical, or moral sense is an IOU written to oneself an asset, the type of thing found in genuine trust funds. That the government pretends to pay interest on these self-IOUs just adds insult to injury.
The date of insolvency, an important milestone in a debate on how the system should be reformed, is the date at which current Social Security obligations are not covered by FICA receipts. That date will come in 2018, not in 2028 or 2042 as Stelzer and others would have us believe.
The clock is ticking. It would be a great public service if The Weekly Standard barred from its pages any mention or discussion of the nonexistent Social Security Trust Fund.
John Gay
Arlington, VA
In his comments on Social Security, Irwin M. Stelzer is misled, as are many, by government accounting when he says the system may not be on the brink of insolvency. He actually believes that the "Trust Fund" will have "earnings" that will cover outlays until 2028, or that benefits may be paid until 2042 and "possibly later."
But the supposed "Trust Fund" is actually a loan of trillions of dollars to Congress--which is spending $1.50 for every $1 of its own income, and is forecasting its own on-budget deficits of $3 trillion over the next 6 years.
Similarly, the "interest income" is just an accounting entry by which Congress tells the Social Security Administration to "put it on the tab," because it has no way to pay any principal back, let alone any interest. Even worse yet, "actuarial balance," which is supposed to measure solutions, is premised on there being a Trust Fund, which there of course isn't.
It is all an enormous accounting myth that, quite unfortunately, is confusing everyone's thinking about a crucial subject and leading us toward bad decision-making.
Bert McLachlan
Katy, TX
Irwin M. Stelzer responds: Of course the "Trust Fund" is not what its name implies. In my article I clearly stated that I would not go into that issue, since it has little to do with the current debate--unless anyone worries that the government will renege on the IOUs that constitute the "fund." The issues are two: Is what Winston Churchill was wont to demand, "Action Now," required, and what action would modernize a system crafted when Americans died earlier and were poorer? To President Bush's credit, he is tackling what he sees as a problem even though action now is not needed--a brave step by a conviction politician. But for reasons I state in my article, a pause for reflection, to consider the issues I raise and Rep. Bill Thomas has since repeated, might improve the president's proposals.
A Tale of Two Wars
The gist of Frederick W. Kagan's "Fighting the Wrong War" (Jan. 17) is that we need a bigger Army in Iraq to guard ammunition dumps, police the border, allow for better troop rotation, and so on. These are valid points, but Kagan misses the essential one: We are not fighting the "wrong" war; we are fighting a "different" war.
Let's divide the Iraq war into Phase I and Phase II. In Phase I, it was U.S. conventional forces versus Iraqi conventional forces--and we won in 21 days. In Phase II, it is uniformed U.S. troops versus non-uniformed Iraqi insurgents, many of whom are jihadists. While we may not want to fight this war, we had better learn how.
Indeed, it's a war we are fighting worldwide along with many other nations. The nation that seems to be most successful in combating non-uniformed insurgents is Israel. What have the Israelis done? They fight insurgents with barriers, roadblocks, inspection points, intelligence, and precision strikes.
These techniques, not a larger Army of Phase I troops, is what we need in Iraq.
Bill Thayer
San Diego, CA
O'Connor's Catholicism
I am ever so grateful for Maria Andraca Carano's thorough and sympathetic review of my Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South ("Southern Cross," Jan. 3 / Jan. 10), especially for her getting most of my argument right. I hardly have cause to complain. But on one crucial point, Carano has misread my intentions. She seems to fear that I have hijacked O'Connor for the Protestant cause, turning her into a crypto-Baptist, when St. Flannery clearly belongs to Rome alone. I seek, in fact, to make exactly the opposite case: O'Connor has such a scandalously faithful Catholic imagination that, far from claiming her as one of ours, I urge evangelical Christians to be claimed by her kind of faith.
In my treatment of baptism, for example, I stress O'Connor's deeply Catholic conviction over the historic Baptist position. I argue repeatedly that baptism is the efficacious sacrament of initiation into the Christian life, and therefore a radical act that transfers our allegiance from the kingdoms of this world to the Kingdom of God. It is not our autonomous pledge simply to follow Jesus but rather the church's utterly gracious gift of the freedom that enables our lifelong conversion.
Nor can one imagine the mystics whom O'Connor admired to be, as Carano suggests, altogether serene souls (and thus utterly unlike O'Connor's fierce fundamentalist saints). When Hazel Motes puts glass shards in his shoes and binds his chest with barbed wire, he is not far removed from Catherine of Siena throwing herself into the fire and Francis of Assisi stripping naked to die on the cold Umbrian ground. In all such matters, I have sought not to "steal" O'Connor from Roman Catholics, but to show Protestants how much we have to learn from her, and so to help Catholics honor one of their own.
Ralph C. Wood
Waco, TX
Fightin' Words
Matthew Continetti's report on the Hamilton/Burr duel ("The 200-Year Duel," Dec. 13) was excellent, but there's one more thing worth mentioning: Gore Vidal's speculation about the "despicable opinion" expressed by Alexander Hamilton that may well have led to the duel.
In his 1973 historical novel Burr (which is very pro-Burr--Vidal claims to be related), Vidal offers the following: Burr had a very attractive daughter who became his constant traveling companion after his wife's death. In the final pages of Burr, someone says, "Didn't you know? Hamilton said that Burr had been his daughter's lover."
Hamilton certainly could have said it. And it might have even been true. We'll never know.
Bill Tucker
Brooklyn, NY
Mile-High Scrooge
In "Merry Christmas" (Dec. 27), Joseph Bottum didn't mention Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, who floated the idea of changing the "Merry Christmas" sign on the City and County Building to read "Happy Holidays."
Hickenlooper was quickly dubbed "HickenScrooge," and about one second after that, he recanted.
Trish Melrose
Louisville, CO