Social Security, Politics, and Idiots

In his first term, President Bush applied himself to the task of sticking his clueless hands into the middle of U.S. foreign policy. And he’s not done yet… He’s got Condy Rice traveling all over the world spewing Bush "tough-talk" about Iran. One can only wonder—and fear—where this is going. Now that he’s made a complete mess of foreign relations, he’s determined to blunder headlong into domestic policy in his second term. Fixing things that aren’t broken (Social Security) and ignoring things that are (our public school system, prescription drug prices, energy price gouging.)

Why, oh why, has he chosen Social Security as his domestic chew-toy? All reliable estimates see the system, left in its current condition, able to pay out full benefits through the year 2042. There is no emergency here, as much as Mr. Bush has already stocked the Misinformation Pipeline with his own gloom and doom version of the future of Social Security.

Here is a man who is never in his wildest dreams going to have to depend upon Social Security as an integral part of his retirement income. Backed by the tremendous fortunes of other powerful men in that same economic stratum. How many Bush generations would we have to go back to find someone who wasn’t rich as Croesus? People tend to forget when they see our "plain-spoken" president on television fumbling with words like "nucular" and "taihr-ists," that he comes from a fortune every bit as impressive as the one they thought made John Kerry elitist. Why is he insisting upon dismantling the retirement fund that I have been paying into all my working life? What’s in it for him? Not much…but we must understand that George W. Bush is simply a mouthpiece for the Republican machine. Ever seen a train going backward on the commuter line? This is the picture I get of the Bush presidency. He leads, but all the power is in the engines pushing from behind.

So, what beef does the Republican party have with Social Security? First and foremost, it was a program introduced by arguably the most successful president of the twentieth century—FDR. A man who dealt with two huge obstacles during his administration, and whom Americans came to depend upon so heavily that, if he hadn’t died in his fourth term, he would probably have been re-elected as many times as he chose to run. A DEMOCRAT. How much does this rankle the Republican elite? So much so that, seventy years later, they are still trying to find a way to discredit Roosevelt and dismantle his ground-breaking policies? Seems an awfully petty reason to be messing with a program that has been a financially sound lifeline for so many millions of hard-working folks over the years. But they do say an elephant never forgets…

For me, there are two major problems with Bush’s plan. First of all, he asserts that anyone born in 1949 or earlier will be guaranteed the benefits they enjoy today. And the new "private investment" phase will not be operational until 2009. Where exactly, does that leave me, and the huge majority of Baby Boomers born in the fifties and sixties? We’ll have some kind of reduced benefits coming from Social Security (they’re not telling us the actual numbers) and we’ll get maybe ten years to try to invest enough money privately to make up for what the system, which we will have been paying into for more than forty years at that point, can no longer promise us. On his Misinformation Tour today, Mr. Bush pointed to a 60-year-old lady in the audience and said, "She’s fine." And then he looked out onto the sea of carefully chosen twenty- and thirty- somethings and said, "But you guys are in trouble." Would that he had then been struck by some alien truth ray, thrown his arm around a fifty-year-old and said, "But my new plan will completely screw you!"

The second major problem? Private investment is WAY too risky. Here’s a little parable. There once was a woman who retired from a major American corporation, where she had been working over forty years. White collar job. Rose from the ranks of the office pool to be a major department head. Made a decent living, put up with a lot of bull during her later years, but hung on in order to achieve that retirement holy grail. During the nineties, when the stock market was riding high, she was convinced to pull most of her money out of the slow-growing retirement fund administered by the company, and invest in the stock market. She paid a financial advisor to set up a program that would take advantage of the economic times and translate her thirty years of retirement savings into a nest egg that would keep her comfortable for the rest of her life. And the money did grow. As retirement day approached, her assets topped the million dollar mark. Pretty impressive to a sixty-something middle class lady. How exciting it was to think that not only would her retirement be secure, but she might have more extra money than she had ever dreamed of having. Travel! Toys! Maybe a vacation home! She retired with a huge smile on her face, and a light heart.

Then September 11th happened, and the stock market tanked. Within two years, her stock portfolio lost two thirds of its value. There was nothing she could do but watch the numbers plunge, and hope the free-fall would stop before her money completely disappeared. There was no point in pulling the money out of the market…anywhere else she put it, there would be no hope of recovery at all. Thank God she can still depend on Social Security. She knows she’ll never be totally destitute. True story. This woman is my cousin. I saw all this transpire with my very own eyes.

What kind of future is Mr. Bush proposing for us? Imagine being retired, and having your life ruled by the tick of the Dow Jones. His big business backers cannot guarantee that there will not be another September 11th, or some kind of unforeseeable disaster that would make our privately invested retirement funds swirl down the toilet of a market reversal. It is the history of the market…there is boom, and there is bust. There is very little of smooth, secure sailing. And I don’t want to have to be worrying about that in my golden years.

Social Security is not an entitlement. It is not a hand-out. It is a government-administrated investment fund. You pay in. You draw out. Social Security will not be giving me anything I haven’t paid for. The way to ward off a possible short-fall in funds when it comes the Baby Boomers’ time to collect is NOT to reduce the amount of money coming in. Even an idiot can understand that. But, oh, that’s right… We’re dealing with politicians here. Worse, and potentially more dangerous, than idiots.

I have just one thing to say. Keep your hands off my Social Security, Mr. Bush.