I’ve wondered for several years now how the Republican Party could seemingly embrace a philosophy that was largely based on antagonism toward Social Security. This seemed so completely antithetical to conventional wisdom that suggests the Social Security crowd is such a political behemoth that it is not to be trifled with under any circumstances.
And then in his January 2005 inaugural address, President Bush floated the idea of privatizing Social Security, taking the gloves off big time and launched a debate that continues to this day despite all the obvious political pitfalls that confront such a dramatic restructuring of the social safety net.
For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why the GOP thought this was a political winner. With the ranks of the Social Security recipients about to expand at a staggering rate as the Baby Boom generation sails past age 62, why would this be a desirable strategy to essentially define an entire political party’s agenda? Sounded kinda nuts to me.
And then with the economic devastation of 2007-2009, I naively figured the whole question of privatization of Social Security should have been shelved for at least another generation or two. I’ve been stunned that I haven’t come across any articles – comprehensive or otherwise – that detail what it would have meant to the nation’s seniors if a substantial portion of the Social Security Trust Fund had been diverted to private equity accounts prior to the market’s meltdown in the closing months of the Bush Administration.
Nope, nobody much seemed to care that the terrifying losses on Wall Street would have been so much more debilitating had we fallen for Bush’s inane policy proposal. Instead, we have had a decade of economic stagnation as awful and pervasive as any in my lifetime that is largely due to Bush’s other idiotic ideas of obscene, unnecessary tax cuts and the horrific Iraq War. W’s one-two punch – with the simultaneous arrival of the bursting housing bubble and the tumbling of investment banks – turned out to be potent enough to nearly bring down the United State’s economy and perhaps beyond.
As an ideologue, W turned out to be Oh! for two terms, so one can only imagine what it would have been like had we allowed him to work his Armageddon magic with the privatizing Social Security scam. How in the hell can such terrifying drivel still have legs three years after Bush returned to his true calling of clearing brush?
I think I’ve figured it out. It’s class warfare, this time directed from right to left, rather than the more typical assertion that it’s liberals who want to turn one class against another. Apparently, the GOP took out its calculator and noted that the Above-62 crowd dies out at a similar rate to those arriving on the voting rolls for the first time, and since they didn’t have any other kind of endearing policy ideas to entice younger voters, they’ve opted to get them pissed off at their grandmothers. Nice touch.
What the hell, the GOP has always been far better at whipping the populace into a frenzy over fear and antagonism toward specific minority groups than it has been at devising coherent policy agendas that might excite their base without actually handing out torches and pitchforks. Think GOP outright antipathy or even hostility to blacks, homosexuals, immigrants, etc., and you’ve got a glimpse of a benighted philosophy that would capitalize on the basest instincts of bigotry, ignorance and xenophobia, to name just a few examples.
So now the right pushes forth eager 20-something bloggers who profess their angst and frustration that the Social Security system that we are insisting they pay into won’t actually be around in another 35-40 years when it becomes their turn to cash in. They self-righteously proclaim that Boomers are sacrificing the prosperity of their grandchildren, speaking with the arrogant self-absorption that suggests they alone are the first generation to recognize the impending Social Security crisis (Note: It is impending, meaning not actually here yet. And by golly, we’ve got crisis aplenty in this country that are already in our lap.)
Well, I’ve got more news for them. Almost 40 years ago, I wrote the Social Security Administration and asked to be excused from paying the FICA portion of my tax bill in exchange for the gleeful Libertarian premise of being allowed to handle my own old-age financial responsibilities. The Feds demurred, sending along a pamphlet or two to ease my pain. Gee, it seems I’ve finally found some common ground with the cyber Generation Z or whatever the hell they call themselves.
It seems to me to be an extraordinarily ugly business to turn a couple of younger generations against those very same grandmas who have been planting $50 bills alongside overpriced Hallmark banalities three or four times a year. You try to come up with a couple of thousand bucks a year stipend for those very same youngsters who want to put the kibosh on your lavish fixed-income largess from Uncle Sammy.
If this is war, bring it on.
- T.S. O’Connell