Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Real Deal, April 28, 2001
I can't top some of the great reviews here, but let me just say this is a readable and even fun debunking all the smear efforts of conservatives, business interests, and libertarians who want to "save" social security.Too often I've heard intelligent people quote distorted and misleading information about social security gleaned from the press (which itself parrots anti-social security thinktanks). I'm sad to say I was one of those people. Then, as the bankruptcy date was revised to be later and later, I began to suspect something was not quite right with the doomsayers. I hoped Skidmore's book would tell the real story, and it did. One cautionary note: though published less than two years ago, some of the information in the book is now dated. For instance, Skidmore reports that in 1998, the trustees moved the dreaded depletion year from 2029 to 2032. While that is true, new readers should be aware that the date has since been moved to 2038!
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Social Security and Its Enemies, January 18, 2000
This stimulating book is one of the most significant studies in public policy for decades, and should have a broad audience. It carefully analyzes the predictions that promise trouble for social security in the coming years, and demonstrates that they are not well founded. In 1983, the Trustees projected that the system would operate permanently at a small surplus. By the 1990s , even though every measure had been more favorable than had been anticipated for the 1983 report, the Trustees had begun to project deficits in their "Intermediate" projections. The "Low-Cost" projections of the Trustees reflect actual experience much more closely, and they continue to anticipate no trouble in the future. These projections, though, receive no publicity.Skidmore's book also documents a long campaign against social insurance that has undermined public confidence in what is probably the most successful social program in history. Those who believe in eliminating most government programs supply the energy, and others who would profit from any degree of privatization supply the money. The author concludes that radical change to a program that affects nearly all Americans has the potential to lead to social disaster. He makes his case so clearly that this book should give pause to those favoring privatization. This is my first electronic review, but the one Walter Hearne submitted misrepresented Skidmore's book so outrageously that I felt compelled to answer. Hearne says the book is an "ad hominem attack against anybody who would dare question the sustainability of current entitlement spending, " and accuses Skidmore of attributing all reform proposals to the right wing. He then mentions a handful of respectable figures who have favored some reform proposals. Skidmore, however, wrote no such thing. He did write that the attacks originated from the right, but said they have been so successful that many supporters of Social Security have accepted their arguments at face value without adequate examination. He argues, in fact, that much of the danger now comes from Social Security's supporters who have naively accepted right wing proposals. Hearne seems fond of the word "cranky," which appears frequently in his Amazon.com reviews. Without regard to crankiness, the problem with his review is inaccuracy. He charges that Social Security "has functioned like a multi-billion campaign fund for the Democrats," and that "Democratic Congresses rountinely ignored scheduled payroll tax increases and instead continued to hike up benefits." Actually, Democratic Congresses have both postponed benefit increases and accelerated payroll tax increases. He condemns Skidmore for saying that raising the retirement age is a "dastardly benefit cut." Dastardly or not, it certainly is a benefit cut. It results in a lower amount being paid over a beneficiary's lifetime, and that is its purpose. Finally, it is absurd to say that Skidmore "suggests that projections of increasing life expectancy must be bunk because the human race is not immortal." What Skidmore said was that it is unlikely that life expectancy will increase every year forever, as the Trustees' model assumes. At no time does he argue that life expectancy is not increasing. His point is that there must be an ultimate limit, and that the age for full retirement already has been increased (by a Democratic Congress, although he did not say so) from 65 to 67, which helps offset the increase. Skidmore's book is not a definitive economic treatise. It is a readable warning to the public. If a book is rated on its importance, this one undoubtedly deserves the full five stars. John George Professor of Political Science and Sociology University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, OK 73034
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Much Needed Information to Counter Propaganda Campaign, June 1, 2000
In this short, easy-to-read book, Skidmore persuasively argues the case for the continued existence of Social Security. No political issue has been more lied about, with malicious intent on the part of opponents, than the so-called Social Security "crisis." Time and again the Social Security Trustees' pessimistic projections have been repeated in the media, but very rarely are the assumptions behind the projections explained. Skidmore explains how the Trustees arrived at the various scenarios, and how the current projections are highly unrealistic and unlikely to come to pass.The truth, though, doesn't hold sway with SS opponents. They are opposed to the system because they oppose any governmental program regardless of its success. Skidmore shows the reader the history not only of Social Security but also of its opposition. He shows us the motives behind chicken littles such as Peter Peterson, Senator Bob Kerrey (who has gotten contributions from anti-SS organizations), and rightwing think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the Concord Coalition. He also touches on how the media have been irresponsible in its reporting and its tendency to print or repeat conservative think tank policy papers without comment. Brief and always to the point, this book is one of the best sources on the Social Security system and its critics available.
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