It's pretty lame to critize a columnist for focusing on an issue because the President is focusing on it as well. Hoy's arguemt, by the way, is weak.

He's not being criticized for focusing on the issue, he's being criticized for pretending to give us economic arguments when he's really just induging in partisan Bush-bashing.

He's NOT focusing on the issue; he's making statements such as the "fatally undermine" stuff, but never backing them up with facts. So it's perfectly fair to criticize him.

Don't we know Krugman's plan? Raise taxes on incomes over $150,000! That's his solution to anything that requires more money.

"Raise taxes on incomes over $150,000! "

Wasn't that Bush's solution last week for an hour or two? Could have sworn he VERY briefly said he'd consider raising the cap on FICA taxes (why are conservatives big fans of "fair" flat taxes on income, but totally opposed to the same flat tax on FICA??). And if the problem in need of solution really is SS's long-term fiscal health, one very easy solution would be to just scrap the SS cap. SSA's own analysis says that likely would make SS self-sufficient for at least 75yrs (their legal projection limit). This is, FYI, a solution Krugman suggested in one column. Contrast this as well, with Bush's own admission that his privatization scheme will do nothing to solve SS's long-term shortage. Why should we be rushing to pass a change to SS that, by its own fans admission, does nothing to fix the SS problem that started the discussion???

And now, I'm happy to say, the popular expression describing the GOP right now is "lashing out" (as in, frustrated children who didn't get their way). Delay seems especially whiny, first saying AARP is just a wing of the Democratic party (what, like they were in Nov'03 when they backed Bush's drug card program??), and they saying AARP opposed something that hasn't even been created [a SS privatization plan]...which seems to belie the hundreds of news stories over the last several months that noted how GOP leaders went to the WH for a full briefing on the President's "plan"...First there is a plan, then there isn't? Like a monty ripoff, first its there, then its gone!

I'll never forget watching Krugman on C-Span addressing an audience at the Miami International Book Fair last November. The audience was practically licking him it was so well-disposed towards what he had to say, but the man was a quivering bundle of nerves, his voice trembling with barely-suppressed fear, his eyes rolling continuously back and forth like a man watching for assassins, and so on.

Zoomie
Benefits are going to be cut. Get over it. There is no way 1.8 workers per 1 retiree in 2040 are going to carry the load "guaranteed" by the current system.