Why rob banks? Cuz that’s where the money is!

This principle, er, old joke, helps explain a recent Republican brainstorm: how to secure for Americans that very European subsidy, paid “parental leave.”*

The new idea is to pay for the desired time off with Social Security funds.

Social Security is, after all, a ginormous funnel through which a huge percentage of nearly every worker’s wealth gets “redistributed”: from young workers to retirees, from today to a distant tomorrow.

So, siphoning some largesse off for this wish-list item strikes some folks as natural.

Who are these geniuses?

Well, The Hill reports that “Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is working with Ivanka Trump to craft a paid family leave plan that will appeal to fellow Republicans,” and cites Sen. Mike Lee (R.-Ut.) as with Rubio in that endeavor.

“Such a proposal,” The Hill elaborates, “would address concerns of Republicans who don’t want to raise taxes to pay for family leave.”

Shikha Dalmia, writing at Reason, expresses the obvious concern: “it isn’t like Social Security has a ton of spare cash lying around to dole out to people other than retirees.”

But, not so fast: Republicans have given the notion a tincture of plausibility: they’ve pitched the program as a way to “take control of one’s Social Security account.” The “paid leave” would be treated as early withdrawals from Social Security, offset by postponing retirement.

Unfortunately, we don’t have real accounts. Each participant has a list of tax payments and a schedule of promised benefits — legally changable at any time. The proposed offset would itself be offset by the bringing forward of Social Security insolvency.

The willingness of politicians to rob the Social Security “kitty” is, apparently, something we can always count on.

Which makes Social Security itself something we can count on even less.

twv

* Remember when the idea was just half as big? That is, when it was mere “maternity leave”?