Grover Norquist: ideological reasons for social security 'reform'

[AirAmFan]

In 1976, management science guru Peter Drucker published a book on "Pension Fund Socialism".

Ever since, some of the progressive movement's greatest successes have come from using Drucker's insights occasionally to redirect normally reactionary economic power toward progressive ends. For example, "South Africa Disinvestment" was the driving force behind the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Students persuaded university endowments to sell stocks of all corporations that continued to do business in South Africa. Public employees did likewise with the boards that controlled state employees' pension funds. Eventually, the economic underpinnings of apartheid crumbled, and Nelson Mandela was released from decades of imprisonment to be elected President.

IMO, fear that management of Social Security would eventually evolve to create similar economic levers of power for ordinary Americans is the second most important driving force behind the goofy idea to privatize Social Security. But, like the financial corporations who seek 20 percent of FICA taxes in management fees for a privatized Social Security, the radical ideologues who fear "Pension Fund Socialism" also generally remain mum about their assessments and intentions.

I started this thread to try to gather together a few direct statements by radical right-wing ideologues of the real reasons they are crying "Social Security crisis" and trying to privatize our retirement funds.

I googled '"pension fund socialism" "social security" "defined benefit"' and found this 1998 gem from Grover Norquist:

"The short-term benefit of debating pension reform is a great help to Republican candidates and incumbents. In the long-term, the effect of enacting such reform is fatal to the Democrat coalition. Today, a state employee sees his salary and his pension as controlled by politics. The only way to get a raise or better pension is to work through his union and elect or lobby politicians. The state of the general economy, the value of the Dow Jones Average, capital gains and business investment have no effect on his pension.

But a state worker with a defined-contribution pension is a property owner. Every month he receives a letter letting him know how his investments have grown. Or not. He will watch the evening news to see the stock market rise or fall. He will care about cutting the capital gains tax. Government regulations, taxes and anti-growth politicians are the enemies and despoilers of his pension.... A state worker dependent on politicians and union leaders for his pay and pension is a receptive listener to House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt�s politics of hate and envy. But a state employee with $200,000 or $300,000 in his 40lK is likely to bristle at Gephardt�s "soak the rich" rhetoric. This will greatly strengthen the campaign to abolish the inheritance tax and the capital gains tax.

SCIENTISTS PREDICT THAT WHEN THE 401K RISES ABOVE $225,000 THE TRUMAN DEMOCRAT BECOMES A REAGAN REPUBLICAN."

(From http://www.atr.org/opeds/tas/tas0398.html )

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Isn't this the man who wanted to make the government small enough

to drown in the bathtub?

[AirAmFan]

3. Yes, that's him

And I believe the Bush Administration has allowed his organization to screen all candidates for substantial Federal appointments, for four years now.

You can't get any farther to the right than Norquist, without wearing a swastika or a KKK hood.

[AirAmFan]

2. NY Times on Ahnold's proposed privatization of CALPERS,

the state public employees' pension fund:

"Some opponents of privatization also detect a subtler agenda among those pushing private accounts - to silence the voice of workers and their pension fund managers, who oversee some of the largest institutional investment accounts in the nation.

Calpers has been a leader in an effort to bring greater accountability to corporate boardrooms. It pulled its money out of tobacco companies in the 1990's, voted its shares against Michael Eisner, chairman of The Walt Disney Company and leaned on the Philippines to do more to protect worker health and safety.

Critics say the role of pension funds is to safeguard their members' money, not make social policy. "There is an overriding issue of what happens when you have these superlarge retirement systems straying from bottom line of the benefit of members and straying into corporate governance, even social engineering," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. "A motivation for us, as you move to a system of individual accounts, is that over time you will depoliticize the retirement system in the state of California."

(From http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/23calif.html?pagewanted=2&oref=login )

[susanna]

4. This struck me...

"SCIENTISTS PREDICT THAT WHEN THE 401K RISES ABOVE $225,000 THE TRUMAN DEMOCRAT BECOMES A REAGAN REPUBLICAN."

That makes a lot of sense, considering the multiple Democrat to Republican conversions I saw during the CLINTON boom. Their 401Ks must have made them think they were the landed rich...

...sigh

edited because my thoughts are never complete

[AirAmFan]

5. That's why I put it in caps. Without a single-premium annuity table,

a couple of hundred thou may seem like a lot of money. But facing a need for guaranteed income for the rest of your life, with little prospect of the kind of job you had at peak earnings, the average American would find it's not so much after all. It's the ILLUSION of wealth, as opposed to the GUARANTEED wealth of Social Security as we have known it our whole lives. A typical Republican flim-flam--easy to turn into a sound byte, hard to unravel in a minute of TV time for the politically and economically unsophisticated.