Columnist tries to deceive readers on Social Security

Robert Gardner, Henderson

Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

I have read New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s claptrap for a long time and disagree with him 99.9 percent of the time.

I understand he is a Keynesian and thinks government policies only fail because not enough money is spent, but his recent column published in the Las Vegas Sun, headlined “Attacking Social Security,” was laughable.

He writes: “Social Security has been running surpluses for the past quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund.” Yeah, and I have some land for sale.

Although it is true that Social Security has been running a surplus (until this year and next), there is exactly the same amount of money in the “trust fund” as the one your “rich uncle” set up for you.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have spent every dime we have paid into Social Security and replaced the money with IOUs.

Krugman knows this but tries to deceive uninformed readers when he says that claims of a crisis are disingenuous, comparing them to three-card monte.

He also knows that Social Security, Medicare, the military and interest on the debt eat up every dime we send to Washington.

All other programs — education, agriculture, infrastructure spending, etc. — are funded with borrowed money.

Oh, one last thing, did you catch the way he couldn’t help himself but had to throw in the left’s talking points on military spending and the Bush tax cuts?

So predictable.