On those add on accounts

Which I mentioned previously. Apparently Joe Biden made some references to them in his Meet the Press session, and the Daily Howler discussed them in today's article (March 1, 2005). They made a piont I hadn't considered earlier (although Krugman referenced it as well. Must have had a brain melting alien ray pointed at me when I read that part).

. . . a point of simple logic—an “add-on” account is only “added on” if traditional Social Security is fully preserved before the “adding” is done. After all, if future SS benefits are cut, then any additional savings account isn’t an “add-on”—it’s a replacement for the lost benefits. In short, before “add-on” savings accounts make sense, Congress will have to solve future funding problems with traditional Social Security. First, Congress has to make sure that future promised benefits are secure. Then, it could figure out how to create additional savings accounts.

Interesting. Of course it seems like it would be a lot easier for them to cut benefits and pretend that these accounts were not replacing Social Security.