What can you do about a guy like Joe Klein? As if his support for the Bush phase-out wasn’t bad enough, he needs to insist that Democratic opposition to Bush’s plan is not only misguided (by his lights), but is, in fact, comprised of “phony bleats of outrage from leading Democrats” who are “more interested in the demagogic exploitation of the issue than they are in the impact of baby boom retirement on their grandchildren.”
I can assure everyone that my outrage is entirely genuine. It’s also never been clear to me why the High Lords of Punditry think it’s unacceptably “demagogic” to point out that the Republican Party wants to gut middle class retirement security. And then there’s this shameful effort to pretend that privatization is all about helping out young people. But as I’ve point out before, under Bush’s plan the younger you are the more your benefits are cut! If you think it’s crucially important to the future of the country to finance tax cuts for today’s wealthiest individuals by sharply reducing the living standards today’s twentysomethings will enjoy when we retire, then fine. I’ll say you’re wrong, but lots of people have misplaced priorities. But to pretend that you’re doing my generation some kind of favor is just absurd.
