by Eric Dondero

Another example of the hypocrisy of so-called libertarian policy wonks. They brillantly defend free market policies espoused by Republicans, but just cannot bring themselves to praise the very people who are making the proposals. That might be seen as too partisan you see.

From Mike Tanner, syndicated column by Gannett, "At least Ponzi didn't force people to enroll" Sept. 15:

Despite this, Social Security faces more than $20 trillion in future unfunded liabilities. That means payroll taxes would have to be hiked by nearly 50 percent, or the equivalent in other taxes, to keep the program solvent.

Social Security can also cut benefits. Under current law, if nothing changes, a 30-year-old worker today can expect to receive just 76 percent of the benefits that he has been promised. That will be far less than the amount of money he could have had if he had been able to invest his Social Security taxes privately. In fact, many young workers will be lucky if they receive back as much in benefits as they pay into the system.

Unlike Charles Ponzi's original Ponzi scheme, Social Security will never go broke as long as the government can force people to pay more taxes and accept fewer benefits. But does that make Social Security better than a Ponzi scheme - or worse?

In the entire 12-paragraph piece, Tanner did not mention Rick Perry one single time.

Back in 2005, when President Bush famously proclaimed that he was going to use some of his "political capital" fresh off a big victory over John Kerry, to push Social Security reform, libertarians similarly stayed away from defending his proposals. The irony was that Bush got his proposal straight from the Cato Institute. When Bush was attacked severely by the liberal media for including a proposal for partial privatization, libertarians, including those at Cato, were nowhere's to be found. It proved yet again that policy wonker libertarians more often than not are completely clueless when it comes to real world politics.