August 20, 2012 06:06 PM UTC

Radio hosts should challenge folks like Lambert and Coffman who say SS is a Ponzi Scheme

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• by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

If I were a conservative talk-radio host, I’d love it if my guest called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”

The topic would keep your geriatric audience awake, plus it gives you a chance to say “Ponzi” a bunch of times.

So why do talk-radio hosts love to sit there in silent acquiescence as their guests say that Social Security is nothing but a disaster?

That happened last year, when we heard Rep. Mike Coffman say on KNUS’ Kelley and Company that Social Security is “obviously” a “Ponzi scheme.”

And again, on Grassroots Radio Colorado Wed. Colorado Sen. Kent Lambert said Social Security “really is a Ponzi scheme.”

Lambert: “I’d like to tell you what I like about PERA. It’s not Social Security. Social Security really is a Ponzi scheme. You’re taking from one employee or one worker and just giving it over to somebody else. In PERA at least we’re making some investments and having some growth to that retirement system.”

If I were at the controls at KLZ AM 560, I’d be thinking, how beautiful is this?

Here’s a leader of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, whose members presumably know a lot about budgets, saying that Social Security is a criminal enterprise.

That should make for good talk radio. A good debate.

I thought Social Security was one of the U.S. government’s greatest achievements. It’s been tweaked slightly over its 76 years of providing a lifeline to seniors, and it’s on solid ground for 25 more years. With minor changes, it will last indefinitely.

So what’s up with the Ponzi-scheme attack line? It doesn’t fit.

It’s shallow thinking at its shallowest.

Any chance we can hear what Lambert’s logic is, next time he’s on Grassroots Radio Colorado?