Robert Samuelson: Banal and wrong!

Mark Thoma distills the collected works of Robert Samuelson into three banal claims:

Someone said that Robert Samuelson thinks three things are true, deficits are bad, there's a demographic crisis coming, and both parties share the blame for any problem. Based upon these beliefs, he's been writing the same column in one form or another for many years.

That's why I stopped reading Samuelson a long time ago. Sadly, though, the Washington Post continues to feature his Broderesque "insights" in a column that has been going since 1977! Thirty years of this nonsense!

The sad thing that, even after writing the same column for decades, Samuelson still doesn't understand the problem, as Thoma points out:

Notice, for example, how he weaves all three of these points into the opening of his latest column:

Just in case you haven't noticed, the major presidential candidates -- Republican and Democratic -- are dodging one of the thorniest problems they would face if elected: the huge budget costs of aging baby boomers. In last week's CNN-YouTube debate, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson cleverly deflected the issue. "The best solution," he said, "is a bipartisan effort to fix it." Brilliant. There's already a bipartisan consensus: Do nothing. No one plugs cutting retirement benefits or raising taxes, the obvious choices.

...The aging of America is not just a population change or, as a budget problem, an accounting exercise. It involves a profound transformation of the nature of government: Commitments to the older population are slowly overwhelming other public goals; the national government is becoming mainly an income-transfer mechanism from younger workers to older retirees. ...

...Consider the outlook. ... Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- programs that serve older people -- already exceed 40 percent of the $2.7 trillion federal budget. By 2030, their share could hit 75 percent of the present budget, projects the Congressional Budget Office.

Social Security is not the problem, it won't take much to get it on solid footing, though the scare stories over the past several years have made many people believe otherwise (and Samuelson has helped to generate this false impression). The problem is not demographics either, though it certainly costs more to serve a larger number of people.

The main problem is rising medical costs, and unlike the misplaced emphasis on Social Security in the last election, there is a lot of focus on health care reform in the political debate this time around. Samuelson seems to have completely missed the connection between health care reform and his pet column peeve, hence his claim that the problem is being ignored in the political debate when that isn't the case. In addition, Samuelson's continual focus on the budget deficit obscures the real problem. It doesn't matter whether health care is in the public domain or the private domain, the costs will be daunting either way if they continue on their present trajectory, so finding ways to hold down health care costs is where the focus needs to be.

If Samuelson really wants to help, he can quit writing the same misleading and counterproductive column over and over again. Quit saying "cutting retirement benefits or raising taxes" are the "obvious choices" when it's not obvious at all. Cutting retirement benefits or raising taxes will do nothing to reign in health care costs so these measures do not address the main problem. It's time for Samuelson to write a new version of this column and address the core issues, or perhaps better yet, just stop writing about these issues altogether.

Comments

[Paul Sand]

Arnold Kling responds to Thoma:

"Why is high spending on medical care a public policy problem at all? If the affluent were spending their own money to purchase health insurance or to pay for medical services out of pocket, I would see no need for government to "rein in" such spending.

"The public policy problem arises because our government allocates health benefits based on age rather than based on need. The public policy challenge is that we have obligated too much in future benefits to retirees relative to our likely ability to collect taxes. In that regard, I think that Samuelson has correctly identified the core issue. "

[John Doe]

Wow, you've read Samuelson's columns since 1977? How old are you anyway?

[Ben]

Also, for the record, it's completely dishonest to lump Medicaid in among "programs that serve older people." Actually, it serves people of all ages, including a lot of children. But since it serves some senior citizens, I'm sure it's convenient to throw it in with Social Security and Medicare to boost an argument that the government is spending huge amounts on seniors.

[Chris]

Nyhan is tired of Samuelson's argument. I'm tired of people who ignore the enormous pending problem of entitlement spending on retiring baby boomers. Samuelson's critics don't even offer their own ideas. They just mock him. Real intellectual genius at work.

[Bill Hiller]

Nyhan believes in a free lunch, that's why he doesn't like or read Samuelson. He thinks that we can social engineer our way to prosperity---wrong!!! He rails against the elites, but he's one himself. Get a life.