Paul Krugman: Social Security spells end of the Welfare State

The New York Times > Opinion:

Why expose workers to that much risk? Ideology. 'Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state,' declares Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth and the Cato Institute. 'If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state.' By the welfare state, Mr. Moore means Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - social insurance programs whose purpose, above all, is to protect Americans against the extreme economic insecurity that prevailed before the New Deal. The hard right has never forgiven F.D.R. (and later L.B.J.) for his efforts to reduce that insecurity, and now that the right is running Washington, it's trying to turn the clock back to 1932. Medicaid is also in the cross hairs. And if Mr. Bush can take down Social Security, Medicare will be next. The attempt to 'jab a spear' through Social Security complements the strategy of 'starve the beast,' long advocated by right-wing intellectuals: cut taxes, then use the resulting deficits as an excuse for cuts in social spending. The spearing doesn't seem to be going too well at the moment, but the starving was on full display in the budget released yesterday.

I wish I thought Krugman was correct here. I don't like the welfare state and the entitlement culture, but I don't think that Bush is aiming at dismantling such things. Indeed, given the Prescription Drug benefit, it seems hard to me to make that argument stick.