The New York Times' Paul Krugman thinks talk of a troubled future for Social Security is based on partisanship and falsehoods.

Krugman writes that debate about Social Security's future insolvency is "in large part ... the result of decades of scare-mongering about Social Security’s future from conservative ideologues, whose ultimate goal is to undermine the program."

This is utter nonsense.

The Chairman of George Mason University's Department of Economics, Don Boudreaux, responds:

The only evidence that Krugman presents to support his case against the proposition that Social Security is headed for insolvency (unless it undergoes big changes) is simply that Medicare and Medicaid are headed for insolvency that's even worse.

So Krugman's case that Social Security presents no real problems to worry about is like, say, a lawyer advising client Jones that the grand-larceny charges against Jones are really nothing to worry about because client Smith is facing the more serious charge of murder.

While the program's future solvency should be debated and discussed by people more serious than Krugman, the program's real weakness -- its inefficiency -- is almost never discussed by its defenders (like Krugman) -- so, once again, I note these three facts about Social Security, which covers 45-50 million people:

1) The average SS beneficiary receives about $1,050 per month in benefits.
2) 20%-25% of beneficiaries receive SS as their sole source of income.
3) Another 40%-45% of beneficiaries have SS account for at least half their income.

SS taxes are 12.4% of income, which averages about $40,000 in the US.

That roughly 40 years of this level of taxation only produces an average of about $1,050 in monthly benefits should be a cause for real concern for serious people.

It's shameful that supporters of SS as it now exists, like Krugman, never mention this in their defense of the current program.