Check Out Dean Baker On Progressive Social Security Reform
It would be utterly redundant to simply state the abhorrent and destructive nature of Bush's Social Security privatization plan. Not only would it eliminate Social Security's revenue base - that is, payroll taxes of working people and especially those of the top 2%. It would also completely ruin America's seniors.
Consider that most "private accounts," meaning those gambled on Wall Street, yield only a 10% profit in a good economy, and assuming that the average person needs around $40,000 a year to live comfortably, it would take at least a $400,000 investment to even hope to survive. Most seniors don't even come close to meeting the requirements of living off of stock yields.
Needless to say, the Bush Administration hopes to repeal the New Deal, perhaps the most instrumental source of America's modern prosperity, and return the United States to a 19th Century standard of living. You remember, back in the 1920s, when everyone relied on the stock market for their financial security. Do you remember how sustainable that was? Read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas to hear more about how morally bereft the conservatives are who promote this regressive policy....And they haven't even started on their national sales tax yet!
Stock markets were never designed to be people's primary source of income, but rather as a rich-man's supplement. Although nearly 50% of Americans now own stock, this is hardly an endorsement of the stock market's security or even its sustainability. Investments on Wall Street are still a very risky form of gambling, and this is exactly the reason we have Social Security in the first place, because stock markets are inherently unstable and unsuitable for the elderly to live on. The basic ideals of FDR's New Deal are about to be supplanted by the most monstrous scheme in recent memory. God forbid, if Bush's privatization passes, any hopes of the government working for the public benefit will fall by the wayside.
Perhaps the most revolting facet of Bush's privatization plan is its ugly Social Darwinist undercurrent. If Social Security is fully privatized, as the Republicans desire, then the powers that be will be able to justifiably condemn the poor for their own poverty! After all, if America really is the land of opportunity, why can't the poor schmucks simply lift themselves out of poverty. Boy, does history repeat itself. This is a direct parallel to that wonderful period in American public policy known as the Gilded Age, in which regulation and government aid to the disadvantaged were nonexistent and scorned. Corporations roamed free of any constraints and ferociously oppressed their workers, the environment, and the general public with absolute impunity. This was also the period when popular middle class lore held true to a Horatio Alger story, where every poor man, woman, and child, could lift themselves up by their bootstraps and join the wealthy...if only they had just a little more entrepreneurial spirit, that is. Parts of the dreadful Gilded Age have already resurfaced; note that the gap between rich and poor began widening again with the "reforms" of the Reagan Administration, and now the wealthiest 5% control 34% of all wealth in America, while the poorest 20% control only 3.2%. Please, let's hope that the last tenet of financial security in American economics, the last hope of the New Deal, will still stand.
But don't let my pessimism crush your spirit. Read the Center for American Progress's Dean Baker on social security reform.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=292195
Consider that most "private accounts," meaning those gambled on Wall Street, yield only a 10% profit in a good economy, and assuming that the average person needs around $40,000 a year to live comfortably, it would take at least a $400,000 investment to even hope to survive. Most seniors don't even come close to meeting the requirements of living off of stock yields.
Needless to say, the Bush Administration hopes to repeal the New Deal, perhaps the most instrumental source of America's modern prosperity, and return the United States to a 19th Century standard of living. You remember, back in the 1920s, when everyone relied on the stock market for their financial security. Do you remember how sustainable that was? Read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas to hear more about how morally bereft the conservatives are who promote this regressive policy....And they haven't even started on their national sales tax yet!
Stock markets were never designed to be people's primary source of income, but rather as a rich-man's supplement. Although nearly 50% of Americans now own stock, this is hardly an endorsement of the stock market's security or even its sustainability. Investments on Wall Street are still a very risky form of gambling, and this is exactly the reason we have Social Security in the first place, because stock markets are inherently unstable and unsuitable for the elderly to live on. The basic ideals of FDR's New Deal are about to be supplanted by the most monstrous scheme in recent memory. God forbid, if Bush's privatization passes, any hopes of the government working for the public benefit will fall by the wayside.
Perhaps the most revolting facet of Bush's privatization plan is its ugly Social Darwinist undercurrent. If Social Security is fully privatized, as the Republicans desire, then the powers that be will be able to justifiably condemn the poor for their own poverty! After all, if America really is the land of opportunity, why can't the poor schmucks simply lift themselves out of poverty. Boy, does history repeat itself. This is a direct parallel to that wonderful period in American public policy known as the Gilded Age, in which regulation and government aid to the disadvantaged were nonexistent and scorned. Corporations roamed free of any constraints and ferociously oppressed their workers, the environment, and the general public with absolute impunity. This was also the period when popular middle class lore held true to a Horatio Alger story, where every poor man, woman, and child, could lift themselves up by their bootstraps and join the wealthy...if only they had just a little more entrepreneurial spirit, that is. Parts of the dreadful Gilded Age have already resurfaced; note that the gap between rich and poor began widening again with the "reforms" of the Reagan Administration, and now the wealthiest 5% control 34% of all wealth in America, while the poorest 20% control only 3.2%. Please, let's hope that the last tenet of financial security in American economics, the last hope of the New Deal, will still stand.
But don't let my pessimism crush your spirit. Read the Center for American Progress's Dean Baker on social security reform.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=292195
