Max J. Skidmore | Max Skidmore
"Contrary to popular belief, Social Security is not in danger from retiring baby boomers," writes Max J. Skidmore in this easy-to-read attack on those who would reform the system. Skidmore doesn't even grant that the reformers may have a good cause. They are, he says, motivated by bad intentions: "those who have ideological points to score, and those who have fortunes to be made." In other words, the current fuss over Social Security is the result of a successful propaganda campaign waged by antigovernment conservatives and greedy Wall Street investment companies. Privatizing the system is a sham, says Skidmore, because it doesn't guarantee any kind of result. The stock market may go up, it may go down, but Social Security is always there. This book is not written to persuade, but to motivate; readers who want to see Social Security preserved as a government-run entitlement program for retirees will find themselves cheering every one of Skidmore's thrusts and blows. Those who are more skeptical about the long-term solvency of Social Security or think it's a fundamentally bad deal for young Americans will find themselves frustrated by
Social Security and Its Enemies.
--John J. Miller
1 The Real Deal
I can't top some of the great reviews here, but let me just say this is a readable and even fun debunking all the smear efforts of conservatives, business interests, and libertarians who want to "save" social security.
Too often I've heard intelligent people quote distorted and misleading information about social security gleaned from the press (which itself parrots anti-social security thinktanks). I'm sad to say I was one of those people.
Then, as the bankruptcy date was revised to be later and later, I began to suspect something was not quite right with the doomsayers. I hoped Skidmore's book would tell the real story, and it did.
One cautionary note: though published less than two years ago, some of the information in the book is now dated. For instance, Skidmore reports that in 1998, the trustees moved the dreaded depletion year from 2029 to 2032. While that is true, new readers should be aware that the date has since been moved to 2038!
2 Much Needed Information to Counter Propaganda Campaign
In this short, easy-to-read book, Skidmore persuasively argues the case for the continued existence of Social Security. No political issue has been more lied about, with malicious intent on the part of opponents, than the so-called Social Security "crisis." Time and again the Social Security Trustees' pessimistic projections have been repeated in the media, but very rarely are the assumptions behind the projections explained. Skidmore explains how the Trustees arrived at the various scenarios, and how the current projections are highly unrealistic and unlikely to come to pass.
The truth, though, doesn't hold sway with SS opponents. They are opposed to the system because they oppose any governmental program regardless of its success. Skidmore shows the reader the history not only of Social Security but also of its opposition. He shows us the motives behind chicken littles such as Peter Peterson, Senator Bob Kerrey (who has gotten contributions from anti-SS organizations), and rightwing think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the Concord Coalition. He also touches on how the media have been irresponsible in its reporting and its tendency to print or repeat conservative think tank policy papers without comment.
Brief and always to the point, this book is one of the best sources on the Social Security system and its critics available.
3 Social Security Myths Exposed
Max Skidmore makes a solid case on behalf of the Social Security system as one of the most efficient income-maintenance programs in the United States. The book presents a very scholarly and systematic examination of some of the myths surrounding Social Security and exposes the covert propaganda war waged by conservative ideologs against the Social Security system since the program's inception.
This book should be on the reading list of anyone who is concerned about protecting one of the most important safety-net programs in the United States. The book is written in a manner that allows a lay person to understand the arguments surrounding the program. At the same time, Skidmore supports his arguments with scholarly documentation and evidence.
4 Social Security System Myths Exposed
Max Skidmore makes a strong case by arguing that the U.S. Social Security system is one of the most efficient insurance programs. The case he makes is very compelling because it is done in a scholarly manner and he provides solid arguments and evidence. Furthermore, Skidmore carefully documents the covert war against Social Security that has been carried out by its enemies from the inception of the program. The book systematically examines the propaganda designed to destroy Social Security and the sources of that propaganda.
This book should be on the reading list of every serious and thoughtful person who wants to understand the nature of political and ideological warfare wedged against the Social Security program by its enemies.
5 Social Security and Its Enemies
This stimulating book is one of the most significant studies in public policy for decades, and should have a broad audience. It carefully analyzes the predictions that promise trouble for social security in the coming years, and demonstrates that they are not well founded. In 1983, the Trustees projected that the system would operate permanently at a small surplus. By the 1990s , even though every measure had been more favorable than had been anticipated for the 1983 report, the Trustees had begun to project deficits in their "Intermediate" projections. The "Low-Cost" projections of the Trustees reflect actual experience much more closely, and they continue to anticipate no trouble in the future. These projections, though, receive no publicity.
Skidmore's book also documents a long campaign against social insurance that has undermined public confidence in what is probably the most successful social program in history. Those who believe in eliminating most government programs supply the energy, and others who would profit from any degree of privatization supply the money. The author concludes that radical change to a program that affects nearly all Americans has the potential to lead to social disaster. He makes his case so clearly that this book should give pause to those favoring privatization.
This is my first electronic review, but the one Walter Hearne submitted misrepresented Skidmore's book so outrageously that I felt compelled to answer. Hearne says the book is an "ad hominem attack against anybody who would dare question the sustainability of current entitlement spending, " and accuses Skidmore of attributing all reform proposals to the right wing. He then mentions a handful of respectable figures who have favored some reform proposals. Skidmore, however, wrote no such thing. He did write that the attacks originated from the right, but said they have been so successful that many supporters of Social Security have accepted their arguments at face value without adequate examination. He argues, in fact, that much of the danger now comes from Social Security's supporters who have naively accepted right wing proposals.
Hearne seems fond of the word "cranky," which appears frequently in his Amazon.com reviews. Without regard to crankiness, the problem with his review is inaccuracy. He charges that Social Security "has functioned like a multi-billion campaign fund for the Democrats," and that "Democratic Congresses rountinely ignored scheduled payroll tax increases and instead continued to hike up benefits." Actually, Democratic Congresses have both postponed benefit increases and accelerated payroll tax increases. He condemns Skidmore for saying that raising the retirement age is a "dastardly benefit cut." Dastardly or not, it certainly is a benefit cut. It results in a lower amount being paid over a beneficiary's lifetime, and that is its purpose. Finally, it is absurd to say that Skidmore "suggests that projections of increasing life expectancy must be bunk because the human race is not immortal." What Skidmore said was that it is unlikely that life expectancy will increase every year forever, as the Trustees' model assumes. At no time does he argue that life expectancy is not increasing. His point is that there must be an ultimate limit, and that the age for full retirement already has been increased (by a Democratic Congress, although he did not say so) from 65 to 67, which helps offset the increase.
Skidmore's book is not a definitive economic treatise. It is a readable warning to the public. If a book is rated on its importance, this one undoubtedly deserves the full five stars.
John George Professor of Political Science and Sociology University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, OK 73034
6 Voices for Social Security
Every person concerned with the future of Social Security should read this book. As Professor Theodore Marmor of Yale said on the cover, it "meets ideological cant with disciplined argument and credible evidence". Social Security and Its Enemies exposes the tactics of those who would dismantle Social Security under the guise of "reform", and documents the misleading nature of their arguments and the consequences of following their recommendations. Another book by two economists, Social Security: The Phony Crisis, by Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot,takes the same position and supports it with extensive and detailed economic analysis. These two books are complentary. They should be read together to offset the seductive propaganda of Social Security's attackers which misleads even those who should know better. Many liberals, for example, have unthinkingly accepted the opponents' arguments. One of the most extreme examples is that of the excellent economist Paul Krugman who once gave a favorable review to one of Peter Peterson's hysterical attacks on entitlements. Krugman later apologized for breaking his own rule always to check an argument both by making his own calculations and by checking with the "real experts", however plausible the argument might sound.It is hard to believe that any thinking unbiased person could read this book and not agree that Social Security is an integral element of our social fabric that needs our support. Two Thumbs up for the voice in the wilderness.
7 Not a very helpful book
If you're looking for balanced, cool-headed, well-argued case against Social Security reform, this is not your book. If you want a partisan diatribe that is about as worthwhile as the anti-Social Security "propaganda" that Mr. Skidmore describes, then you've found your tome. (Curiously, in the author's narrative "propaganda" suddenly becomes skillful or ingenious "rhetoric" when its used in support of Social Security; never mind that the program has functioned like a multi-billion dollar campaign fund for the Democrats). This book is essentially an elaborate ad hominem attack against anybody who would dare question the sustainability of current entitlement spending on the elderly. The author attributes all reform proposals to the right-wing; never mind that several respectable individuals whom no one would call reactionary, including Brookings economist Henry Aaron, former CBO director Robert Reischauer, former SSA chief actuary Robert Myers, and Urban Institute senior fellow Eugene Steuerle have also suggested reasonable, non-privatization proposals to slow the rate of entitlement spending. Skidmore's arguments against any reform are poorly constructed and rely on a very narrow range of evidence and expertise. He offers straw man refutations such as a cranky letter from an Auburn professor in USA Today, of all places, that is hardly representative of mainstream thought. There are truly bizarre counterarguments: he suggests that projections of increasing life expectancy must be bunk because the human race is not immortal. There are downright falsehoods: he claims that the "relevant" number concerning welfare state spending is the total dependent population--ignoring the fact that the average elderly dependent costs far more money than the average child dependent, and that money spent on the latter is an investment in a future worker while supporting the former only contributes to consumption. The author is also either completely ignorant or disingenuous when he discusses the program's financing. Like many of those who claim a "crisis" in the system, Skidmore misleadingly focuses on the program's long-term "trust fund" balance. Even if the economy will do far better than is projected, as he argues, Social Security will eventually not be able to support itself on payroll taxes alone and it will have to redeem its "assets"--translated, this means that general taxpayer revenue will be necessary to subsidize benefits, increasing what current workers are paying into the system. He is correct to state that the increase in Social Security spending will be only 1-2% of GDP, but Medicare will add much more to that and the real concern is entitlement spending as a percentage of the federal budget. There is legitimate concern that general revenue transfers to entitlements plus interest expenses will crowd out funds for everything else--from education to infrastructure to defense to programs for the non-elderly poor. Skidmore makes the downright silly argument that we should just hike up the interest rates on the bonds that Social Security holds--where the hell does he think this money is coming from? As the late Herb Stein mused, we could simply "credit" Social Security with the money to pay benefits for the next trillion years if we wanted to, but this would simply be an accounting gimmick. Yet this is what Skidmore endorses when he enthuses over Clinton's "plan" to "save" Social Security by shifting debt even further down the timeline. Predictably, Skidmore says that if trouble should arise, we should simply raise taxes (in his eyes, raising the retirement age is a dastardly benefit cut). In his glorified history of the program, Skidmore doesn't bother to mention how Democratic Congresses routinely ignored scheduled payroll tax increases and instead continued to hike up benefits--thereby increasing the level of payments that are considered necessary. Research, such as that done by Daniel Radner (1993) and Michael Hurd (1989) show that the elderly are at least as well off as the rest of the population, even though the elderly poor generally have no means to escape their poverty. Yet Skidmore dismisses the idea of targeting relief to this group, instead relying on the liberal shibboleth that attributes Social Security's political success to its "incorporation" of the middle class, which is really just a roundabout way of saying that people tend to like the government when the government sends them checks. (He also conveniently fails to discuss that the program's political support revolves around a few carefully promoted fictions--see the Rothstein article in reference below). Social Security and Medicare have been successful in helping lots of people, there's no doubt about that. But we should not ignore the fact that the program was created in different time for a different world, and has grown into something far larger than what was originally contemplated. Longer life spans, less working years, greater health--these are all things to be happy about, but they also signify a new reality that books like this one will not help us to understand. Far better books on the subject include Aaron & Reischauer's Countdown to Reform, or Steuerle's Retooling Social Security for the 21st Century. Even if you're skeptical of privatization, as I am, see the work of Martin Feldstein or William Beach of the Heritage Foundation (Beach's plan DOES account for disability, and he has answered critics of his methodology). I found this book repeatedly frustrating, even maddening at times, for the author's intransigence and even dishonesty on several issues--a for more earnest discussion of the liberal standpoint is Richard Rothstein's "When We Practice to Deceive" in Dissent (Fall 99). In sum, this book is alternately dim-witted, disingenuous, omissive, and petty. It's hard to believe that a supposedly reputable academic could put out such an unillimunating piece of tripe like this. This is one of the worst books on public policy that I have ever read.
