Remember when liberals used to call Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

Perry and the Ponzis

(By Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online) - Is Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry a courageous and welcome truth teller for calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, or is he being needlessly provocative instead? Or maybe you think Perry’s Ponzi comparison is just plain wrong. I favor the truth-teller option, but the debate will surely go on.

In any case, it’s certain that Perry’s Ponzi-scheme claim is in no way original. Not only have a raft of conservatives called Social Security a Ponzi scheme over the years, quite a few very respectable liberals have done so as well. It is clearly wrong either to treat the Ponzi-scheme analogy as unprecedented or to rule it altogether out of legitimate public debate. A historical tour of the use of the Ponzi-scheme metaphor will make the point.