Cato's Social Security Efforts in Spotlight

August 15, 2001

The New Republic has profiled Cato's Project on Social Security privatization, crediting the institute with being one of the driving forces behind the debate over Social Security reform. The article describes Cato as "an indispensable source of expertise--with two decades of pro-privatization research and lobbying under its belt, it knows more about the issue than just about anyone else in Washington."

The article notes the ties between Cato and several members of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, as well as several former Cato staff members now working for the commission, and suggests that the institute has had a major influence on the commission's deliberations, going so far as to say that "the Bush commission's work has been almost indistinguishable from Cato's policy papers."

Meanwhile, syndicated columnist Tony Blankley warned that privatization opponents are attempting to demonize the Cato Institute in an attempt to discredit individual accounts through guilt by association. Blankley notes that such campaigns--against "Big Oil," the tobacco companies, the NRA--have become standard operating procedure in Washington, but he thinks Cato an unlikely target. He notes that the Institute's scholars are widely regarded as experts on Social Security, advising governments around the world: "As the intellectual pioneers of this reform concept the Cato Institute has received at its Washington Headquarters wishing to study its finding, foreign delegations from 40 countries including Canada, Russia, Germany, Egypt, Japan, China and Mexico."

As if to confirm Blankley's premise, on the same day that his column appeared, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman attacked the President's Social Security Commission by noting, "many of its members and staff are actually associated with the ultra-conservative [sic] Cato Institute."

Blankley suggests that instead of engaging in name-calling and personal attacks, privatization opponents should be offering their own proposals for Social Security reform. But, given recent history in Washington, that may be too much to ask.

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