IT TAKES MONEY TO LOSE MONEY

The latest Republican foray at Social Security privatization uses the Social Security surplus to pay for private retirement accounts. Proving up is down, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum defended the idea thusly yesterday at a Washington, D.C., news conference:

I’ve not been to one town meeting where I’ve not heard, “If you guys would just stop spending the Social Security surplus, things would be in good shape.”

The new privatization plan is, to Santorum and the GOP, an answer to this complaint. Somehow they miss the point that it is, in fact, exactly what people are complaining about.