At 1:11 AM -0500 11/6/04, Marvin Gandall wrote:
Am I understanding correctly:
1. The whole of Social Security will not be privatized. Only a
portion of the roughly 12% in payroll taxes directed towards SS will
be set aside in private investment accounts. Effectively, this
should divert attention away from the government program and make it
easier to starve, which is what happens when the principle of
universality is breached, which is in a sense what is happening with
this competing plan.
Precisely. What will come is partial privatization, which sets
Social Security on a downward path. The reason it will be difficult
to fight is that it will sound to most Americans like just a small
change and that four or more versions of it (e.g., one presented by
the Bush administration, one backed by House Republicans, one backed
by House Democrats, one backed by Republican Senators, one backed by
Democratic Senators) will be debated. Ones supported by Democrats
will contain some "progressive" features to compensate for
privatization: a measure to increase women's Social Security
benefits, a clause to remove the Social Security tax cap, a proviso
that an independent commission will conduct an impact study, etc. We
will be pressured to support the least of all evils. Propaganda
support by Democrats, unions, and liberal non-profits will include a
scare tactic that paints Republican-backed bills as complete
privatization and portrays the Democrat-sponsored ones as the heroic
last-ditch efforts to save Social Security.
How do we fight it? That's fundamentally a political question, for
which progressive economists' technical expertise and moral appeals
can be of service but do not suffice. Unless we understand the
politics of it and are prepared to fight the efforts to have us
accept the least bad bill, we are doomed to see partial privatization.
--
Yoshie
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