04 August 2004

Playing generational politics with Social Security

Regarding the recent op-ed column by David C. John, it is a close call as to which is more oxymoronic, the idea of Social Security "private accounts" or the fact that the right-wing Heritage Foundation has a "senior research fellow for Social Security" ("Pomp and Bad Circumstance," June 10).

The former is problematic because "private accounts" are antithetical to the concept of Social Security, which as described by the late Paul Wellstone, "is about being part of a larger community that shares burdens and responsibilities."

As for John's position at the Heritage Foundation, it might be likened to that of the foxes' research fellow for henhouse security. The foundation has been in the forefront of propagandizing for repeal of the estate tax, elimination of dividend and interest taxation and all the other Bush administration schemes that effectively redistribute workers' payroll taxes to wealthier Americans.

Along with fellow right-wingers arguing for "reform" by personal accounts, John is all too ready to acknowledge that "Social Security's past surpluses are gone," although he is entirely disingenuous in attributing their expenditure to "roads and aircraft carriers," rather than to tax giveaways to the wealthy advocated by the Heritage Foundation and promoted into law by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Indeed, John fails entirely to mention any relevant history, including the 1983 Social Security revision that dramatically accelerated workers' payroll taxes to establish the so-called "trust fund" that John -- in the company of Fed chairman Alan Greenspan -- now blithely concedes is "gone."

In light of this history, it is even more misleading for John and his compatriots to pretend that their "reform" proposals arise from their solicitude for future generations. This pretense serves two purposes: First, it obscures their true class bias in favor of taxes upon wages and salaries rather than upon accumulated wealth and its returns; second, by appealing to the fears of younger workers, it creates an exploitable generational "wedge" issue between those for whom benefits seem to be "guaranteed" and those for whom only accelerating payroll taxes seem certain.

The potential success of this generation trope was well illustrated in the Pioneer Press "Spotlight letter" of June 19, from 20-year-old Dana Eliason of Northfield. Apparently persuaded by the disingenuous "privatization" arguments, she chides John Kerry for being "selfish" in his supposed lack of concern for her generation. The accompanying cartoon embraces the fraudulent theme of pick-pocketing the younger generation. The misdirection of Eliason's anger is entirely forgivable considering the incessant drumbeat of propaganda from the Heritage Foundation and the Bush administration and their allies.

But unless she or her family is already wealthy, Eliason ought to carefully consider the logic of Social Security "fix" based upon the premise as John puts it, of making "existing taxes work harder by allowing younger workers to invest some of them in personal retirement accounts." This is simply arithmetic nonsense. As economist Paul Krugman has written, "only those who might be convinced that 2-1=4" could believe that the younger workers' contributions could be subtracted from an already deficient fund and yet have an increase in the amount payable for benefits. Far from seeking to reform Social Security, the proponents of "private accounts" want to end it -- right now -- leaving "wealth-building" private accounts for those who can already afford them anyway and diminishing what was once "Social Security" to a remnant welfare program subject, like other current welfare programs, to funding by congressional and legislative whim.

Eliason offers the very apt advice that those seeking the younger generation's vote should "stress the importance of finding a solution for Social Security." The great mystery is that the only proposed "solution" to have been propagandized into public consciousness, namely "privatization," is a design for destruction, not salvation of the system.

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