To the Editor:

“Bring it on,” Ezra Klein declares of the risks of the Social Security tax holiday in his Dec. 9 piece, “The payroll tax cut, Social Security and the problem of the trust fund.”

What this plan—a one-year slash of the payroll taxes that fund the program—could “bring on” is the demise of a vital American safety net.

Here’s the problem: On Capitol Hill, “temporary” just isn’t. Unfortunately, people’s memories of what the tax holiday was for (stimulus), and what it really had to do with Social Security (nothing), will be temporary too. When it comes time for the tax to be reinstated, and people’s paychecks seem to shrink (i.e. back to normal size), they will blame Social Security for their “loss” in income, while Social Security’s detractors call it a “tax hike” and suggest instead that Social Security shrink to fit.

Stimulus is good—for jobs, the economy, and lower-income people. But doing it this way “brings on” myriad new ways for Social Security’s opponents to undermine the very program on which current and future elders (especially of lower income) rely. What we should be bringing on is a rational way to tame the deficit while providing stimulus money to the people who need it most and use it best—lower income folks who will spend it because they have to.

Rachel Goldberg, Ph.D. B’nai B’rith International Director of Aging Policy