A Social Security system Bernie Madoff would love

One crucial feature of a Ponzi scheme, at least from law-enforcement’s point of view, is that its creator intends to defraud investors. That can’t be said of Social Security. Still, Berkowitz said that only means the federal entitlement system is “a warm and fuzzy Ponzi scheme.”

Think Progress wonders aloud “if Perry will be able to get away with maligning these popular programs on the campaign trail.”

If history is any indication, the answer is probably yes.

Laissez-faire economists and politicians have been calling Social Security a sham since it was a glimmer in FDR’s eye. In 1936 GOP presidential candidate Alf Landon called the Social Security Trust Fund “a cruel hoax.”

And how’s this for “wingnutty?” In a 1999 New York Times article calling for the privatization of Social Security, the Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman wrote that the “guaranteed” benefits of the entitlement program exist “solely on the expectation that future Congresses will honor promises made by earlier Congresses — what supporters call ‘a compact between the generations’ and opponents call a Ponzi scheme.”