dismantling Social Security would havedire economic consequences

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1394435,00.html

Regime change that could destroy our homeland
Bush's plan for dismantling Social Security would have
dire economic consequences, and Republicans who
support it had better be prepared for a backlash.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal

Jan. 20, 2005 | In his second term, President Bush
is intent on regime change. The country whose order he
seeks to overthrow is not ruled by Islamic mullahs or Baathists. But members of his administration have compared its system to communism and have used the image of the Berlin Wall to describe its rot. The battle will be "one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times," the deputy to White House political director Karl Rove wrote in a confidential memo. Since the election, the president has spoken often of the "coming crisis," and he has mobilized the government to begin a propaganda campaign to prepare public opinion for the conflict ahead. The nation whose regime he is set on toppling is the United States.

One part of his strategy is to pack the federal bench
with judges pledged to restore what conservatives call
the "Constitution in exile"
-- the Constitution before the New Deal. Bush has
renominated for judgeships "those" already rejected by
the Senate, including William Haynes, who as the
Pentagon's general counsel advised on the policy that
the president isn't bound by laws governing torture,
and Janice Brown, who has denounced the New Deal as a "socialist revolution" and is opposed to the incorporation of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.

Since the New Deal, the American social contract has
been built upon acceptance of its reforms. When Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president after Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, he never challenged the New Deal, solidifying the political consensus that has prevailed for decades. Not even Ronald Reagan, who, after all, began as a fervent New Deal Democrat, attempted to overturn it. But now Bush has launched an assault on the social contract in earnest, seeking to blast away at its cornerstone, Social Security, which disburses pensions to the elderly and payments to the disabled.

The end of the election marked the start of Bush's new campaign, and he is stumping relentlessly to replace this "flat-bust, bankrupt" system by siphoning Social Security funds into private stock market accounts. His motive was best explained by his political aide, Peter Wehner, in a memo circulated through the White House. "For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win," Wehner wrote triumphantly in the afterglow of the election victory. "And in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country."

In order for this conservative dream to be achieved,
the public must first be convinced that Social
Security is "bankrupt." The administration, Wehner
wrote, must "establish an important premise: the
current system is heading toward an iceberg. We need
to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact:
right now we are on an unsustainable course. That
reality needs to be seared into the public
consciousness; it is the precondition to authentic
reform." Moreover, Wehner stated, the private accounts
are simply a wedge for future benefit cuts, though he
does not advocate that the administration stress that
point.

And so Bush and Vice President Cheney insist that
Social Security will soon be "flat bust." A political
front group run by one of Rove's protégés, which
produced the TV commercials that trumpeted defamations
about John Kerry's military record, is spinning out
new ads on Social Security. The Social Security
Administration itself has been dragooned into sending
out millions of letters telling recipients that the
system is in "crisis." Indeed, the associate
commissioner for retirement policy at the agency,
Andrew Biggs (also the former director of Social
Security privatization at the Cato Institute, a
right-wing libertarian think tank), wrote: "Before the
Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Communists insisted that
life on their side was swell. But if everything was so
great, why did they need the Wall? The same holds for
Social Security."

Despite Bush's furious animadversions, the Social
Security actuaries in their most sober assessments
report that the current system will be able to issue
full benefits without any changes until 2042. Only the slightest modifications then would guarantee complete solvency beyond that into the indefinite future. Thus the "iceberg" melts before the facts. <snip>

[wolfgirl]

1. We need our leadership

to take a cue from the likes of Hersch & Blumenthal in speaking out and telling the truth! That would be an individual I could vote for.

[isit2008yet]

2. If its such a good idea to put

Social Security into the stock market then why doesn't the current administration do that? If people can earn so much more investing their savings than what is prohibiting SSA in doing that?

I would like to think they would also have a safety net in place for those who lose all their savings in the stock market when it tanks 150 points like this past week. So if they guarantee people who invest, why can't they maintain the current system?

This "ownership society" means the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. The only ones to profit from this change are the investment firms and some of those firms contributed to Bush's inaugural festivities.

Bush Speak: "ownership society" = "Help the big corporations and f&ck over the little guy."

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

3. Excellent Article!

I believe that the SSA is rquired to invest in US Treasuries - but didn't someone recently propose a change that would allow investing a portion in the market? I like that concept. It would seem to me that professional money managers might do a better job of selecting proper investments than John Q Public would do. IMO most people don't have the time to research and follow the markets in order to make good choices. For those who want to invest in the market for their retirement we already have IRA's and Roth IRAs in addition to our 401(k) contributions!