Politics, not need, drives Social Security 'reform'

[struggle4progress]

By Palm Beach Post Editorial
Tuesday, January 11, 2005

<snip> Behind this campaign is an attempt not to adjust a program facing demographic change but to undermine the very concept of Social Security, which will turn 70 this year and continues to accomplish its mission. President Bush and other ideologues who want to eliminate those parts of government they don't like — and don't need personally — would substitute risk for certainty, penalize future retirees and further jeopardize the nation's finances, for the political glee of burying a New Deal triumph.

Last week, The Associated Press broke the story of a White House e-mail from Karl Rove's sidekick. It stressed the need to make Americans believe that Social Security is "heading for an iceberg." That explains why the administration is ignoring the usual 75-year financial forecasts for Social Security and warning of a mystical $11 trillion gap between revenue and benefits projected into infinity. That explains why the administration probably will propose cutting future Social Security payments by linking them to prices, which rise slower than wages. The White House wants to create in the public mind a scenario that only some form of private retirement accounts can address. <snip>

The need to adjust Social Security, based on the shrinking number of working and rising numbers of retirees, is real. The need to radically privatize is fiction. Behind the White House push are those who would profit from the change. Securities firms would get new business. Large employers would escape any increase in the payroll tax that finances Social Security; employers match employees' 6.2 percent contribution. Think back to Medicare "reform," which came with large subsidies for the insurance, health-care and pharmaceutical industries and only promises of help for most beneficiaries.

The Bush administration was not honest about Iraq, and the country got a debacle. The Bush administration was not honest about Medicare, and the country got a larger bill, not reform. The Bush administration is not being honest about Social Security. How long will it take before the country finally gets it?

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/01/11/a12a_socsecedit_0111.html

[TexasBushwhacker]

1. Excellent editorial - lays it all out - N/T