May 10, 2011
David Brooks is very angry that Democrats are relying on the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the Medicare privatization plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan and approved by the Republican House. This analysis shows that the Ryan plan would increase the cost of buying Medicare-equivalent policies by $34 trillion over the program’s 75-year planning period. This increased cost is almost 7 times the size of the projected Social Security shortfall.
Brooks wants Democrats to ignore the evidence that shifting from a public Medicare program to private insurers will increase costs and instead accept his claims that Ryan’s plan will save money. He describes their refusal to follow his faith-based policy as “mendacity.”
Interestingly, Brooks discusses the increasing number of prime age men who are not employed without ever once mentioning the criminal justice system. A hugely disproportionate share of non-employed prime age men have spent time in jail or prison. The enormous growth in incarceration rates over the last three decades (the number of prisoners has more than quadrupled since 1980) is almost certainly an important factor in declining employment rates.
Comments