Jonathan Cohn’s New Republic defense of the Democrats’ fiscal record isn’t online. At one point he writes that Republican entitlement reforms “don’t even do a very good job of making the programs more affordable.” He continues, “After all, it’s the Republican plan for Social Security privatization that anticipates the federal government borrowing trillions of dollars in ‘transition funds’ in order to pay current beneficiaries while younger workers start their investment accounts. (Privatization advocates argue that these transition costs don’t matter, because they merely force the government to take out a loan equal to the amount it already owes–as an implicit debt–to future retirees. But many economists worry that the bond markets will react much more harshly to this new, ‘explicit’ debt.)”

Cohn deserves credit for actually mentioning the reformers’ argument on transition costs. But I think he’s got an important detail wrong. Most reformers are talking about a package deal that includes both private accounts and cuts in future benefits. So they’re not talking about taking out a loan equal to Social Security’s implicit debt, but rather one much smaller than it. They are moving some costs forward while eliminating others–and it’s entirely possible that the markets will react favorably to that combination.