Posner: Details of Ryan Plan Don’t Matter

The significance of the plan lies not in its details, or indeed in any of its proposals, but rather in the willingness of a major politician to challenge entitlements spending. This is only part of the plan but it has great symbolic significance, displays political courage, may open a productive dialogue, and challenges President Obama to propose his own plan for limiting such spending, which he has thus far been too timid (or politically realistic!) to do…

The significance of the plan lies not in its details, or indeed in any of its proposals, but rather in the willingness of a major politician to challenge entitlements spending. This is only part of the plan but it has great symbolic significance, displays political courage, may open a productive dialogue, and challenges President Obama to propose his own plan for limiting such spending, which he has thus far been too timid (or politically realistic!) to do…

Perhaps some politician will be bold enough to advocate that all entitlements programs, including social security as well as Medicare, be means-tested, as Medicaid is. There is no reason why people who can afford to provide for their retirement should be subsidized by the government, which is to say by the taxpayer.

Full Richard Posner post at the Becker/Posner blog. See Gary Becker’s post here.