Indexing Social Security - Brooks' Column in the NYTimes

In his column, David Brooks praised Bush's proposal for indexing Social Security benefits. Briefly, this amounts to reducing benefits for middle class retirees and leaving low income retirees' benefits where they are now. He accused Democrats of being hypocrites for not agreeing to this.

Forum contributors were fairly uniform in condemning Brooks' proposal. My comment was:

I was going to write a criticism of Brooks' column, but after I read the other contributions in this Forum, I no longer feel that I have anything left to say. My distinguished colleagues have said it all. We agree, Brooks is a shill for Bush.

We know it, the NYTimes knows it and surely Brooks knows it.

The NYTimes obviously has made an executive decision to seek "balance" on its Op-Ed page.

To satisfy this need and to make a good salary for very little effort, Brooks and Tierney have offered themselves, just as whores offer themselves to paying customers.

What Brooks and Tierney really believe about Social Security, I have no way of knowing, but I'll bet that they are very pleased with the strong, articulate and unanimously negative reaction that they evoked from Forum contributors.

They can now go to their bosses and say: "You wanted 'balance.' Well, you got 'balance,' in spades. Now, when do I get my raise in pay?”