the rhetorical linkage between 9/11 and Iraq - and SocSec and priv accts

[papau]

the rhetorical linkage between 9/11 and Iraq -and the rhetorical linkage between the future Social Security trust fund shortfall and the "need" for private accounts

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/opinion/18krugman.html?oref=login

February 18, 2005

Three-Card Maestro
By PAUL KRUGMAN

<snip>This week, Mr. Greenspan offered no excuse for supporting privatization. In fact, he agreed with two of the main critiques of the administration's plan: that it would do nothing to improve the Social Security system's finances, and that it would lead to a dangerous increase in debt. Yet he still came out in favor of the idea.

Let me make a detour here. The way privatizers link the long-run financing of Social Security with the case for private accounts parallels the three-card-monte technique the Bush administration used to link terrorism to the Iraq war. Speeches about Iraq invariably included references to 9/11, leading much of the public to believe that invading Iraq somehow meant taking the war to the terrorists. When pressed, war supporters would admit they lacked evidence of any significant links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, let alone any Iraqi role in 9/11 - yet in their next sentence it would be 9/11 and Saddam, together again.

Similarly, calls for privatization invariably begin with ominous warnings about Social Security's financial future. When pressed, administration officials admit that private accounts would do nothing to improve that financial future. Yet in the next sentence, they once again link privatization to the problem posed by an aging population.

And so it was with Mr. Greenspan. He painted a dark (and seriously exaggerated) picture of the demographic problem, and said that what we need is a "fully funded" system. He then conceded that Bush-style privatization would do nothing to improve the system's funding.

But privatization "as a general model," he said, "has in it the seeds of developing full funding by its very nature." Nice metaphor, but what does it mean? Clearly, he was trying to create the impression of links where none exist.

Mr. Greenspan went on to concede that the opponents of privatization are right to worry about the huge borrowing that Bush-style privatization would entail. <snip>