March 17, 2003

Fuzzy math  

Matthew Yglesias comments on the latest projections for Medicare insolvency:

Obviously, these sorts of predictions are more art than science, but I'm guessing that the combination of costly war, costly tax cuts, costly occupation, and costly addition of a prescription drug benefit is not going to make the situation any better.
Hear, hear. These kinds of insolvency predictions for Medicare and Social Security are almost impossible to gauge because it's never clear whether they include payouts from the current payroll tax surplus, or whether those surplusses are being allocated against future disbursements (a "lockbox"). Of course, there's no such thing as a lockbox - even under Clinton, we were using that surplus to buy back govt bonds - that is, to pay down the natl debt.

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