To all of you who have responded to my posting on Marginal Revolution, many thanks. I have enjoyed the dialogue and the sparring. All of us, I believe, have our country’s interests at heart even though we may come at these issues from different perspectives. My purpose in writing The Price of Liberty – which, as I have noted in several postings is a quote from Hamilton about Revolutionary War debt and not about the Iraq War – was to trace the history of wartime financing from the Revolution through the War on Terrorism to see what we can learn from the past and how we can do things better. I think even those who have taken issue with me about the current set of policy issues will enjoy the history contained in the book. I hope that whatever you think, you will let me know your thoughts, your comments and your criticisms. I hope you at least find it interesting – even if there are parts of it you disagree with.
Thanks again to Marginal Revolution for hosting me as a guest blogger this week.
Warm regards,
Bob Hormats
author of The Price of Liberty
If anyone cares
I wrote extensive comments in reply to Hormats on AngryBear.com.
I believe I showed that Social Security can be put on a sustainable basis without taking any money at all from “the budget.” It will eventually require a raise in the payroll tax on the order of fifteen dollars per week, in 2042 or so, when those workers will be making at least a hundred dollars a week more than they are now. This money will not disappear into a government black hole, but will come back to the same workers who pay it in the form of benefits for their retirement. It will be needed because those same people will be living on average 6 years longer than their grandparents.
Hormats ignored all this and asked if I was relying on wishful thinking to pay for Social Security. I invite anyone interested to review the dialogue and decide for themselves if they are “wishful thinking”. Or if Hormats has reasons of his own to ignore them.
Indiana
I knew you’d care.
Try this: Archaeology and History of Custer’s Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined; by Richard Fox
i am painfully aware of the bad manners of this. but i am trying to keep you from being the victim of a huge confidence game. over on AngryBear.com we have discussed Hormats in some detail. Lots of detail. It will wear you out. It may bore you. It may save you from living under a bridge when you are old, while Hormats’ friends spend your money on shiny new submarines to fight Osama.
I was relying on wishful thinking to pay for Social Security. I invite anyone interested to review the dialogue and decide for themselves if they are “wishful thinking”.
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