Real Reform for Social Security
By DAVID BROOKSBefore we get lost in the policy details, let's be clear about what this Social Security reform debate is really about. It's about the market. People who instinctively trust the markets support the Bush reform ideas, and people who are suspicious oppose them.
Close.
People who instinctively trust the markets support the Bush reform ideas. People who realize instinct isn't a sound basis for economic policy oppose them.
The people setting the tone for the opposition to the Bush Social Security effort depict the financial markets as huge, organized scams where the rich prey upon the weak. Their phrases are already familiar: a risky scheme, Enron accounting, a gift to the securities industry, greedy speculators preying upon Grandma's pension.
Close.
That's the tone being set by those who would really prefer we not bring any substantial information into the discussion. People who would prefer you act on instinct in an area where you, frankly, haven't the experience to develop sound instincts.
What you hear these days is not liberalism. It's conspiracyism. It's the belief that the Bushite corporate cabal is going to do to domestic programs what the Bushite neocon cabal did in the realm of foreign affairs. It's the belief in malevolent and shadowy forces that will grab everything for their own greedy ends. This is Michael Moore-ism applied to domestic affairs, and it will leave the Democrats only deeper in the hole.
Close.
What you hear these days is not liberalism. It's pragmatism. Having seen the Bush cabal manipulate and lie to an all too willing public successfully, it would simply be foolish to think these same guys won't use the same tactics to the same end.
I don't deny that many business and Wall Street types would like to capture the system for their own benefit. As Theodore Roosevelt observed, every new social arrangement begets its own kind of sin, which has to be punished by law.
Close.
ALL of them would like to capture the system for their own benefit. It's called being responsible to your shareholders…even if there's only one.
But as Roosevelt and his great hero Alexander Hamilton understood, corruption is the price we pay for economic freedom, and the benefits of that freedom vastly outweigh the costs.
Accept corruption?
Not.
Even.
Close.
Article comments
1 - Mike Kole
Close, indeed. I supports markets, but I do not support Bush's proposed reforms.
At the base of it all, I oppose the premise that people must be forced to contribute to a retirement fund. It isn't any better to this free marketeer that we would still be forced to contribute, but that some portion of it might be allocated to a stock portfolio.
What's a fiscal conservative to do? Today's Republicans are just as interested in command and control as the average Democrat.
Good book list!
2 - P6
To be honest, I don't have the "command and control" issue. I like the idea of not worrying about tripping over starving homeless old folks so I'm willing to compromise.
3 - andy marsh
As my father tells me, SS was never meant as a retirement plan, it was supposed to supplement retirement plans. To many people rely on it as old age welfare.
4 - P6
Too many people have no choice. You can call it old-age welfare if you like.
How many of you would even BE here if this sort of social support wasn't available? I find it remarkable how few people realize they are only in a position to oppose such programs because they and their families benefitted from them in the past.
A lot of you guys are being looked at the same way Black folks look at Black Conservatives that oppose affirmative action programs after getting their current position through one or more of them. WHich is not to start an afformative action discussion but to give you a clear parallel.
5 - andy marsh
My father has been a self-employed truck driver all his life! I don't see how he benefited from anything the govt has EVER done! He's been shot at by union cronies, shot at by assholes in Detroit for no other reason than being there! and the govt never did a damn thing to help him.
SS was NEVER meant to be a sole means of support for anyone!
How would I not be here without SS?
6 - P6
You need to look more closely at what the government does then.
That was then. Now that can no longer be done with impunity because the government will not allow it.
I'm tempted to paraphrase a new friend and say you're bing dominated for your own good, but that would just be sarcasm (that I still couldn't resist mentioning, you'll note).
"this type of social support."
I'm thinking New Deal programs in general.
7 - JR
My father has been a self-employed truck driver all his life! I don't see how he benefited from anything the govt has EVER done!
They kept repaving the roads his truck tore up.
8 - P6
Well, there's that...