VISION, VALUES, AND SOCIAL SECURITY

For the most part, politicians of all stripes have largely avoided launching a frontal attack on Social Security. That was primarily the job of conservative think tanks and intellectuals who, unlike your typical right wing politico, did not have to worry about feeling getting slammed by the wrath that’d accompany an attack on a program that’s strongly and widely supported by the populace. Politicians were loath to publicly apply the “P” word— “privatization”— to Social Security.

Third rail kind of stuff.

That’s until 2005. In a rare exception, then President George W. Bush decided to publicly test that third rail thing. Just reelected to his second term, President Bush was feeling his oats and openly proclaimed that he planned to spend some of his political capital on privatizing social security, on pushing the idea that people—especially younger folk— should have the option of investing some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market. This, said the President, would yield a higher rate of return, allow folk to accumulate more wealth, and give them something to pass down to their progeny.

What’s more, Bush sought to beef up his argument by maintaining that Social Security shafted African-Americans. Because we. on average, check out of here earlier, we don’t get to collect an amount of benefits that’s commensurate with our contributions. In his own words:

“African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people. And that needs to be fixed.”

When it comes to Social Security, so this story goes, Blacks get bamboozled.

The problem, though, is that all that stuff about the “bamboozlement” of Black folk is downright false and, over the years has been proven so. It simply does not follow that (a) because we die younger that we (b) get shafted by social security.

Also, there’s a political reality that’s important: Social Security, as mentioned above, is extremely popular, and was so during Bush’s tirade against it.

In fact, the more he talked about its allegedly problematic nature- and its consequent “need” to be privatized— the more the public’s opposition to privatization deepened. Between September 2004 and February 2005, the percentage of Americans favoring the privatization of social security plummeted from 54% to 46%.

Politicians definitely got the message delivered by the public’s reaction to Bush’s proposal: If you’re down with privatizing Social Security, then your best bet is to practice prevarication. Be slippery about your support. Discrete. Cagey. Evasive. Deny that you’ve got any intention to privatize, cut benefits or anything else that’ll endanger the program.

PENCE DECIDES TO POUNCE

But former vice President, Mike Pence, seems to have missed the memo and, most recently, has summoned forth the same lame but nasty and dangerous spirit that animated Bush’s attack on Social Security.

Delivering his remark just a little more than a week ago to a closed door session of the National Association of Wholesale Distributors, he began by positively referencing Bush’s earlier effort to privatize Social Security and then immediately went on to state:

“I think it's absolutely essential that we generate leadership in this country that'll be straight with the American people, that will take us off this trajectory of massive debt that we're piling on the backs of those grandchildren, and says there's a way back. There are modest reforms in entitlements that can be done without disadvantaging anybody at the point of need. And actually, I think the day could come when we can replace the New Deal with a better deal, literally give younger Americans the ability to take a portion of their Social Security withholdings and put that into a private savings account that the government would oversee.”

Unlike Bush, Pence does not—at least not here— try to make privatization seem as being rooted the “de-bambozzlement” of Blacks.

His entire argument hinges on an the assertion that the federal debt is “too high,” “entitlement spending” is out of control, and the completely insupportable claim that covered workers would end up better off if they were able to invest some portion of their social security contributions in the stock market.

All of this has been academically shot down over the last few decades but they’re the quintessential Zombie ideas who refuse to die.

UNDERLYING VISION OF THE GOOD SOCIETY

Underlying Pence’s words, though, is a certain vision of what he considers to be a “good society.”

And just what is that vision?

Well, the clue is to be found in what is perhaps the most telling sentence in his aforementioned remarks:

“I think the day could come when replace the New Deal with a better deal…”

It’s a vision of society that’s characterized by an absence of social insurance that’ll protect against the risks of poverty often associated with retirement, injury on the job, and death.

It’s a vision that’s hostile to the notion of economic rights— that is, it stands in stark opposition to the idea that all of us have a right to those economic and social goods that are prerequisites for our thriving.

It’s a vision that’s grounded in a detestation of anything that resembles Roosevelt’s call for a “Second Bill of Rights,” updated to establish a right to a job, a living wage, a decent home, and health care.

The only insurance that Pence digs is that which is purchased through the private market. If you come up short and end up in poverty as you age, if you don’t have the dollars to replace any lost earnings because you’ve been injured on the gig, if any of your family members suffer economically because of your death—well, that’s the result of your own failure to plan and save.

DON’T GET PLAYED

So, let me give it to you straight, no chaser:

Don’t get played.

Rather than buying into the conservative call for what amounts to a long range plan to try to scuttle Social Security, let’s do this:

Let’s imagine a version of the good society that honors human rights, including the right to those economic goods that are essential to human flourishing.

Let’s imagine a version of the good society that ensures all of us, as we age, can rest assured that we’ll out our days without the specter of poverty, hunger, and economic misery hanging over heads.

Let’s imagine how we can defend and strengthen Social Security so that all of this is possible.

Because, after all, it’s about vision and values. Catch you on the flip side,

Doc Greene