Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

I should probably stop responding to left-wing critiques of Obama, but Dean Baker’s broadside against Wall Street Democrats has a huge, gaping misrepresentation:

When it comes to economic issues the tone this crew sets is decidedly more in line with Wall Street than Main Street. This can be seen on issue after issue.

They have trumpeted the Social Security “crisis” for more than a quarter century, convincing the bulk of the public that the program is on the edge of bankruptcy. While proponents of the crisis view are all over the news, editorial pages, and pundit shows, the basic facts about the program’s finances are almost never mentioned.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the program can pay all scheduled benefits for nearly 40 years with no changes whatsoever. And even if nothing is ever changed, Social Security will always be able to pay future retirees a higher benefit (adjusted for inflation) than current retirees receive. Where’s the crisis?

Ok, so plenty of Democratic centrists wanted some sort of entitlement reform. But Baker is wrong on two main points. One, just about none of them supported the Bush reform plan. Gene Sperling and many others talked about adding on private accounts, but Democrats were all very unified on the specifics of opposing Bush’s rhetoric and his plan. And the Democrat who was leading that charge was none other than Jason Furman. Brad DeLong documented both Furman’s substantive opposition to the plan, as well as his day-to-day advocacy against it. So it’s hard to see exactly what point Baker is trying to make. If Furman is the apotheosis of “Wall Street Democrats,” then complaints that “they” were soft on social security reform are just pointless. Robert Rubin is not on the Obama economic team and it’s not 1993. So please, if someone is going to criticize Furman, criticize Furman, not a vague and poorly defined group of thinkers with varying temperaments, ideologies and ideas.