SYNOPSIS:

I hear from the grapevine that people are fulminating about comparisons between Social Security and the Bush tax cuts. The tax cuts must be minor, they insist, compared with the "real problem".

Sheesh. Is it really so hard to do a bit of homework?

The basic point - that the Bush tax cuts are much bigger than the actuarial shortfall of Social Security over the next 75 years - isn't even controversial, at least among those who've done the numbers.  Here is a good summary.  Here are more up to date numbers.

General point: anyone who talks fiscal policy without regularly reading the work of the   Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the  Tax Policy Center is either lazy or doesn't want to know. Yes, they're both (mildly) liberal in outlook. But they're also both scrupulously honest. And there's no counterpart on the other side. I wonder why?

Originally published on the Official Paul Krugman Site, 8.2.03