Krugman on the President and Social Security (updated)

[ProSense]

There Is Still No Such Thing As Socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid

And President Obama, I’m glad to see, knows that:

The truth is Social Security is not the huge contributor to the deficit that the other two entitlements are. I’m confident we can get Social Security done in the same way that Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill were able to get it done, by parties coming together, making some modest adjustments. I think we can avoid slashing benefits, and I think we can make it stable and stronger for not only this generation but for the next generation.

It’s also important to realize that the conceptual issues are very different for Social Security than they are for M&M. For SS, we decide the level of benefits; for M&M, we can’t do that, because health costs for any individual are unpredictable; so cost-savings on the health-care programs essentially involve deciding what we’ll pay for rather than how much we’ll pay. (Death panels!)

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Edited to add: President did a great job setting up the debate on reforming the tax code, fixing Soc. Sec.

Updated to add: Barking Up the Wrong Tree: Social Security is *Not* the Problem

Though there seems to be a concerted effort to get people to believe otherwise, Social Security has very little to do with our long-run budget problem.