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I can understand people getting the jitters at the mere mention of private retirement savings plans. These were a rightwing talking point for so long, in the agenda to kill Social Security.
I don't think Obama has any intention to harm Social Security with private savings plans.
However, I just want to discuss context for a moment--that is, what Republican corpo/fascists might do, if they regain power--which we should never for a moment forget is not just possible, it is probable, with all the voting machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations.
Never forget that.
What did Enron do, when California's Democratic governor had built up a $10 billion surplus? They moved in and stole the entire surplus.
What did the Bushwhacks do, when Bill Clinton created a big surplus in the federal government? They moved in and immediately rammed their first tax cut for the rich through Congress, and then started two wars--so the rich and the war profiteers could steal the entire surplus--and have furthermore--what with Diebold and all (fast-tracked during the 2002-2004 period)--kept on going, to run up a trillion dollar deficit (and counting).
Progressives create prosperity and wealth, high employment and a good tax base. Corpo/fascists steal it all.
Memory, memory, memory! Let's keep our memories, our history, before us. Back in the 1960s-1970s, people trusted Savings and Loan institutions, which were heavily regulated to insure that poor and middle-class savers, and other savers, were protected from speculators. The interest was modest. The safety was rock solid. What did the Reagan de-regulators do? They permitted all those careful savings over the decades to be looted.
So, why should people trust Obama's private retirement savings plan, if Bushwhacks can get Diebolded back into power, and just rip it all off? Deja vu all over again.
Somewhere in your OP, Obama says, "We can't get something for nothing," in connection with the Social Security program. I thought this a rather odd statement. SS is not nothing. It's MY hard-earned dollars paid in over a lifetime of work, and everybody else's. That money existed at one time. I made that money. You made that money. We trusted the government to use it wisely, at compound interest.
What Obama doesn't mention, and what no one is talking about, is that the Bushwhacks have borrowed against the SS fund for their goddamned wars and tax cuts for the rich. They have also borrowed against the government employees pension funds. If this massive thievery had not been committed, there would be NO problem now. The problem is not the funds we have paid into all these years. The problem is Bushwhack war and looting.
So-o-o-o, what will be the guarantees NOW, that anything we do--to save money, to prepare for the future, and even to work and generate wealth, and tax revenues, and new infrastructure and common good projects--will not be massively, catastrophically looted again?
This is where Obama and I part company. What should be happening is a major, thorough, "New Deal"-like restructuring of the fundamentals of this economy, including how corporate business is organized and regulated. NUMBER ONE: All corporations above a certain size, and especially the monopolies, conglomerates and heavy overseas operators, need to be busted up, some of them dismantled--with their corporate charters pulled and their assets seized for the common good. NUMBER TWO: Raising the cap on SS is all well and good, and should have been done a long time ago, but--more fundamentally--SS needs to be protected against any future out-of-control president taking out a lien against it--to enrich his rich friends or conduct corporate resource wars. NUMBER THREE: As with our voting machines, health care needs to be shorn of private corporate profiteers--particularly the insurance companies, but also Big Pharma.
Obama is trying to have it both ways--to please the people AND to please the corporate rulers and the super-rich. This may be because his hands are tied in various ways. It may not be his fault, exactly. He may be the artifact of whatever deal he had to make to achieve any power at all. It nevertheless needs to be pointed out as a mistake, and possibly a fatal mistake.
As FDR said, "Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred." This steely, pro-people stance created over 40 years of stability, with a strong, large middle class, and upward mobility for the poor. It takes steel, not compromise, to counter the power of the super-rich, especially as it organizes its wealth and power into impenetrable corporate fortresses. Create all the great government programs you wish, and unless you fortify them against looting by the rich, they will be looted. All the fortifications we had--including our democracy itself and honest elections--have been breached. We need to re-fortify ourselves against similar future attacks.
So this is what I would say to Obama: We need to look back AND forward at the same time. We ignore what has actually happened at great peril--looting of all that we had, all that we, the working class and small business, have built up over the years. Our pensions, our savings, our schools, our emergency services, our national guards, our military, our faithful payment of our taxes, our productive work habits and loyalty to businesses, everything--looted! Even that sacrosanct program, Social Security, which doesn't pay out much, but pays out something, to keep our elderly off the streets. The "baby boomers" paid into it. Don't tell me there is a "baby boomer" problem. Where are those funds?! I'll tell you where. They are in missile systems we don't need; in wars we didn't want; and in the pockets of the super-rich, here and in...Saudi Arabia and around the world, wherever the Bushwhacks have stashed their billions.
We have to address the fundamental structure of our economy, or it will all happen again. And key to that crying need, in my opinion, is getting rid of the "TRADE SECRET" voting machines. As long as these corporate fuckwads can reinstall Bushwhack regimes, any time they wish, whatever we gain, whatever we save, whatever we create, will be taken from us.
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