Shall we talk of "Social Security" again?

W is supposed to raise this subject during the next Congress, so it is time we start thinking about how to fix it. Clive Crook, in the National Journal, quotes a gem from the late Milton Friedman - the accepted guru of free-market economics.

• "Pure Friedman, for instance, are the observations on Social Security. This is a program of two parts, he explained. The first part is a high and steeply regressive income tax, levied with no exemption up to a fixed ceiling. The second part is a welfare subsidy paid without regard to need, based on marital status, longevity, and recent earnings. Nobody in his right mind would support either of these ideas taken one at a time. (Isn't Friedman right about that?) Yet in combination, see what happened. These two wrongs have become the holiest of sacred cows: "What a triumph of imaginative packaging and Madison Avenue advertising," Friedman said. "

To fix you must understand, and the above is the clearest explanation of Social Security I have read. THERE IS NO MONEY. Only each year a terribly regressive income tax (the payroll tax) to pay an outdated welfare subsidy to the elderly. And the subsidy is about to get significantly larger than the tax.

When you accept the above, you can start making decisions about what to do.