After 75 Years, Social Security Still Threatened by Republicans

The Democrats are celebrating the 75th anniversary of Social Security. At a time when Republicans are doing their best to kill pensions for workers, social security is more important than ever for widows, the elderly and the disabled. These are the hidden citizens of America, most of whom have worked hard all their lives. These are the people Republicans would like to forget. Democrats know better. Here's the story from The Boston Globe:

“Social security was something that my grandfather viewed as a key part of his legacy, just as universal health care is going to be a key part of President Obama’s legacy,” said [James] Roosevelt in a conference call Friday afternoon with reporters and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine.

Roosevelt and Kaine pledged to protect Social Security as a public program, especially in light of cries for privatization this election season from Republicans like Sharron Angle of Nevada and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

As far as I can tell, the primary reason Republican politicians are pushing for the privatization of social security is that they want campaign contributions from conservative stock brokers who would obviously have a piece of the action. This, of course, is not about helping the American people. This is about raw politics, power and greed. Nothing more.

I have no idea what to make of people like Sharon Angle. Here's an AP article where she's peddling Republican talking points:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle says the nation's Social Security system needs to be privatized, and that it was done before in the South American country of Chile.

What does Sharon Angle know about Social Security? Does she know the history of workers in our country? How do people like Sharon Angle get nominated? She has repeatedly said things in the past few months that reveal a lack of knowledge across a wide area of subjects. So obviously, after a series of blunders, she's now being stage-managed by her Republican advisers at this point. Who's advising her? At two or three removes, I suspect sociopaths like Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich are peddling this stuff. If the word, 'sociopath,' seems strong, note that Gingrich's ex-wife quotes Gingrich's staff as saying "he's a sociopath, but he's our sociopath" (It's not the only time the word has been tied to Gingrich). Is that what people want? Republican puppets who spew all the talking points without having the foggiest idea what they're talking about?

I hate to be harsh but I recently had to read a paper by a young person who got bamboozled by a lot of nonsense being posted on the Internet. This person has no stake in the social security 'debate' and simply used the Internet for research. If one simply Googles the words, 'is social security bankrupt,' the problem quickly becomes apparent. The sky is falling crowd of Republicans has dozens of papers attempting to scare people into believing that social security will go bankrupt in 2010, 2012 or 2016. Again, I would prefer to take a more thoughtful approach, but when you read the stuff, it's just fraud, lies and nonsense.

One could argue that the Great Recession that was brought to us by George W. Bush might have been deep enough to damage Social Security. But in fact Social Security has weathered the crisis fairly well. Here's a story from the Los Angeles Times about the recently released annual report of the Social Security Trustees:

In recent years, during which conservatives have intensified their efforts to destroy one of the few U.S. government programs that actually works as intended, the report's publication has become an occasion for hand-wringing and crocodile tears over the (supposedly) parlous state of the system's finances.

This year's report, which came out Thursday, is no exception. Within minutes of its release, some analysts were claiming that it projected a "shortfall" for Social Security this year of $41 billion.

(snip)

Before we get to the bogus math behind that statement — which doesn't actually appear in the report — let's look at the encouraging findings by the agency's trustees, who include the secretaries of Labor, the Treasury, and Health and Human Services.

The trustees indicated that the program has made it through the worst economic downturn in its life span essentially unscathed. In fact, by at least one measure it's fiscally stronger than a year ago: Its projected actuarial deficit over the next 75 years (a measurement required by law) is smaller now than a year ago.

When one sees crocodile tears from Republicans, be sure to look closely for the dollar signs in their eyes. They keep thinking of the hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars that might flow in from those stock brokers wanting to cash in on the privatization of social security.

Now these guys won't set up those private accounts for free (why do you think they're salivating?). But they were certainly ready to charge their fees back in 2005—except that Bush wasn't able to pass social security privatization. Too bad. Think of all that money investors might have made between late 2007 and early 2009 during the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Those are funny folks who run the Republican Party these days.

Republicans Still Pushing Social Security Privatization

For all the noise that Republicans make about the health care bill that just passed, the truth of the matter is that today's Republican leaders care far more about their rich friends than they do ordinary Americans. Oh sure, at election time Republicans like to drive around for a few minutes in an old pickup during a political rally. Of course a half hour after the rally, they go back to their Mercedes a few blocks away and head home. Then these Republicans get on the phone with their rich friends and ask what they can do for them before the bushels of money arrive.

The problem is that rich Republican donors are not only getting more conservative themselves but a pile of money now comes in from rich folks like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh who multiply their effect by having their legions of listeners stuff envelopes with enough money for a politician to stay in business for years, in or out of office. Hey, look how much Sarah Palin is making these days now that she's no longer governor of Alaska.

Republican politicians on the airwaves are very good at stirring up fears and making lots of irrelevant noise, but they have swung so far to the right that they're now a bit fuzzy on reality. It's amazing that they're still trying to peddle social security privatization. In Hawaii, here's a story about Charles Djou, a GOP candidate:

...he said that President Bush had the right idea by addressing Social Security, and said the concept of voluntary personal accounts “deserves examination,” but wasn’t willing to say he supported a specific plan because he said that Democrats would take him out of context and attack him for wanting to destroy Social Security.

Uh, Republicans want to destroy social security but don't want Americans to think that's what they're doing. Gotta love that logic.

Paul Krugman is always worth reading since he easily and quickly cuts through a lot of Republican flim flam. Economists like Krugman deal in real numbers as opposed to fictional numbers written down on a cocktail napkin (this actually happened during the Reagan years). The word 'privatization' is a public relations nightmare and Republicans are doing their best to sell the same privatization idea while using language that's warm and fuzzy and fraudulent. Here's what Krugman says about Rep. Paul Ryan who likes attention and loves playing with numbers and words for the Republican cause:

...Ryan’s claim that diverting a substantial share of payroll taxes receipts into individual accounts does not constitute partial privatization of Social Security [has a bit of] history here.

Back when the Cato Institute first began pushing for individual Social Security accounts, it called its push, well, The Project on Social Security Privatization. As the Bush administration got ready to make its privatization push, however, it became clear that “privatization” polled badly. So the project was renamed The Project on Social Security Choice. And Republicans began bristling at any suggestions that they were proposing privatization, calling that a slander. Really.

Wait, it gets better. Cato engaged in Orwellian tactics — deleting the term “privatization” from older web posts and even from records of old conferences. But they were sloppy; there were traces of the true history throughout. I don’t know if they’re still continuing the practice.

In any case, Ryan’s attempt to deny that what his own movement used to call privatization is, in fact, privatization should settle the question of his sincerity.

Right wing politicians are always sincere, until they're caught making things up. But then there's another route when doing politics. Act confused. Former moderate Republican Chuck Grassley had this to say about social security privatization:

(Caller) LONA: Senator Grassley, I am a Democrat who has voted for you many times. I appreciate your service to our state. I want to know if you still support privatizing Social Security?

SENATOR GRASSLEY: I was never in favor of privatizing Social Security, but I was in favor of giving people a choice. People could, uh, could, uh, under what we are talking about, although it never got into a bill, so I can’t, you can’t, you can’t tell me, you aren’t telling me, I mean I just want to say generically that I introduced a bill to do any of this stuff that I am telling you, but we were trying to negotiate in 2005 where people could stay in traditional Medicare, not Medicare, Social Security as it has always been, continue down that road, or they could take 1 percentage point, 2 percentage points of the taxes they pay in and they could have the government put that in a separate account for them, say like the federal employees do with their 401ks, for example. But the federal government would manage it. When you use the word privatize, it means that we would not have the government running Social Security and we wouldn’t have Social Security, I have never been for that.

Got that? But it still sounds like a giveaway to stockbrokers on Wall Street. If privatization had been passed by Republicans in 2005, America would have lost its shirt in 2008.

The more I read about today's Republican leaders, the more obvious it is that Americans need to send more Democrats to Washington. Republicans need to reform their party, push out the lunatic right and start advocating real solutions. Until then, the Republican Party is not fit to lead.