This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, November 27, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

The debate over what to do about the so-called fiscal cliff is heavy on tax hikes and light on

spending cuts.

Jugadish Gokkley, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, says the debate over

Social Security is light on substance too.

This debate over the so-called fiscal cliff is about tax rates for the most part,

but a lot of people are should be talking about

spending reductions and the chief driver of the increases in spending that we're

going to see in the coming years is entitlement spending.

So what do you tell these people who are trying to have a calm rational reasoned debate about something that they really should have dealt

with if not years ago at least months ago. I think the emphasis before the election

was on getting more by way of spending cuts than tax increases

with the election of President Obama and the Democrats maintaining their strength in the House and the Senate.

The focus of the discussion has shifted more towards tax increases because I suspect or gas as probably most people do.

The Democrats seem to be now empowered with an idea about a mandate to push through their preferred policy

direction and so the focus is more on tax increases but I think we should consider that both

benefits such as Social Security and Medicare and so on and taxes have negative

consequences on economic choices that people make. Benefits encourage people to believe they're secure in their retirement and therefore retire early,

maybe not save sufficiently for their retirement.

Possibly even... not save sufficiently for their retirement.

Possibly even since they are not going to be working as long

may not even acquire as much human capital as they otherwise would.

...