That is the only plausible conclusion of the complaint in his column that: "Obama hasn't done anything to reduce the expense of retiring baby boomers." Presumably, if he realized that the baby boomers had just lost around $10 trillion in housing and stock wealth due to the incredible economic mismanagement of President Obama's predecessors in the White House, he would not be pressing to even further cut the wealth of the baby boom cohorts. Samuelson apparently has also not been following the debate on health care reform. Peter Orszag, President Obama's budget director, is proposing a number of steps which could bring U.S. health care costs more in line with those of other wealthy countries. These countries on average pay less than half as much per person for health care as the United States, yet enjoy comparable health care outcomes. If health care costs can be contained, which is one of the main points of the proposed reform (apparently Mr. Samuelson missed this fact), then the future budget deficits will be far less serious than suggested in this column.
--Dean Baker
