It's Weird

Yglesias on proposed cuts to Social Security's administrative budget:

Love it or hate it, Social Security is a pretty lean, mean, check-writing machine. Money comes in through payroll taxes and it comes out through checks. It’s practically automatic. But of course it’s not 100 percent automatic. It does need a few human beings to run it. But thinking that it’s somehow smart to try to trim the fat here is bizarre. Actually reducing the quantity of money in the checks would make old people mad but also save a ton of money. Gumming up the administration of the check-sending process packs a lot of oldster-aggravating punch but barely gets you anything. It’s weird.