Letter, first draft
Mar. 23rd, 2005 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythThis is replying to this letter here to one of my local papers. Feel free to comment, critique, and offer other things I should mention or rebut.
I find Janice Dorschner's claims about Social Security to be disingenuous ("Options would allow safe investment of Social Security funds," the Democrat, March 23, 2005).
Starting with her own second to last paragraph, where she states that the private accounts proposed by President Bush won't solve Social Security's funding problems. This is exactly true, and has even been admitted by President Bush and other proponents of privatizing Social Security. When even its proponents admit that privatizing Social Security won't help with the alleged crisis, why should we do it?
Especially given the fact that in what little President Bush has said about his plan, all of the money to pay for the current benefits would be borrowed by issuing bonds. It would require trillions of dollars of new debt that would pile onto the already record deficits the government is running. That's trillions of dollars of new debt that would have to be paid for, most likely by tax increases on younger Americans, our children, and grandchildren. These tax increases would be much higher than the ones required for future taxpayers to pay back the Social Security Trust Fund. Which would also have to happen anyway, since, as she admitted, the private accounts wouldn't help Social Security's financial situation. These tax increases alone would almost certainly be greater than whatever return came from the private accounts.
It's hard to tell for certain what effect of President Bush's plan will be, mainly because he hasn't presented it yet. All he's spoken of is the "necessity" of private accounts, without providing any of the important details. It may be a "lockbox" as Dorschner claims, or it may be something entirely different. We don't know, we can't know, because the President won't tell us. We can't tell exactly how much it will cost, or who it will affect how, because the President won't tell us. We don't know who will be eligible, how voluntary it will be, or how safe, because the President won't tell us. If all solutions are on the table, why won't he tell us what his proposed solution is, so people can look at it, decide if they want it, offer changes, and the rest of the things that make democratic politics work?
Dorschner claims that Social Security is retirement, rather than insurance, which isn't quite right. Social Security is retirement insurance. We, as a society, decided that we didn't want senior citizens starving to death or being forced out of their homes after they retire, and set up Social Security as an insured bottom level for retirement, for the poor, the unlucky, or the people who just outlived their savings. That is its purpose, and what it's done, incredibly well. No matter how "safe", investment is always risky, unless you can afford to lose the money. The stock market is not a predictable ramp that continually climbs. It can, and has dropped suddenly, across the board, even in "safe" stocks. Add to that the multitude of investment options, plus management fees and uncertainty about how long you'll live, and it's certain that there would be people whose private accounts would fail. And I don't think we in twenty years, or our kids or grandkids would sit there and let old people starve because they lived longer than they expected. So we'd end up creating a guaranteed floor of income for old age, that would be practically identical to Social Security's current retirement benefits.
When private accounts won't solve the problem and would just push the government even more into debt than President Bush's tax cuts already have, why should we support them? Private accounts won't benefit most retirees, and would leave many substantially worse off. Instead of silliness about Social Security, politicians should work on fixing the large and real problems in the government's budget. And undoing most of President Bush's tax giveaways, instead of adding more, would be a good start.
Tags: Politics, Writing, Mindscribbles
I find Janice Dorschner's claims about Social Security to be disingenuous ("Options would allow safe investment of Social Security funds," the Democrat, March 23, 2005).
Starting with her own second to last paragraph, where she states that the private accounts proposed by President Bush won't solve Social Security's funding problems. This is exactly true, and has even been admitted by President Bush and other proponents of privatizing Social Security. When even its proponents admit that privatizing Social Security won't help with the alleged crisis, why should we do it?
Especially given the fact that in what little President Bush has said about his plan, all of the money to pay for the current benefits would be borrowed by issuing bonds. It would require trillions of dollars of new debt that would pile onto the already record deficits the government is running. That's trillions of dollars of new debt that would have to be paid for, most likely by tax increases on younger Americans, our children, and grandchildren. These tax increases would be much higher than the ones required for future taxpayers to pay back the Social Security Trust Fund. Which would also have to happen anyway, since, as she admitted, the private accounts wouldn't help Social Security's financial situation. These tax increases alone would almost certainly be greater than whatever return came from the private accounts.
It's hard to tell for certain what effect of President Bush's plan will be, mainly because he hasn't presented it yet. All he's spoken of is the "necessity" of private accounts, without providing any of the important details. It may be a "lockbox" as Dorschner claims, or it may be something entirely different. We don't know, we can't know, because the President won't tell us. We can't tell exactly how much it will cost, or who it will affect how, because the President won't tell us. We don't know who will be eligible, how voluntary it will be, or how safe, because the President won't tell us. If all solutions are on the table, why won't he tell us what his proposed solution is, so people can look at it, decide if they want it, offer changes, and the rest of the things that make democratic politics work?
Dorschner claims that Social Security is retirement, rather than insurance, which isn't quite right. Social Security is retirement insurance. We, as a society, decided that we didn't want senior citizens starving to death or being forced out of their homes after they retire, and set up Social Security as an insured bottom level for retirement, for the poor, the unlucky, or the people who just outlived their savings. That is its purpose, and what it's done, incredibly well. No matter how "safe", investment is always risky, unless you can afford to lose the money. The stock market is not a predictable ramp that continually climbs. It can, and has dropped suddenly, across the board, even in "safe" stocks. Add to that the multitude of investment options, plus management fees and uncertainty about how long you'll live, and it's certain that there would be people whose private accounts would fail. And I don't think we in twenty years, or our kids or grandkids would sit there and let old people starve because they lived longer than they expected. So we'd end up creating a guaranteed floor of income for old age, that would be practically identical to Social Security's current retirement benefits.
When private accounts won't solve the problem and would just push the government even more into debt than President Bush's tax cuts already have, why should we support them? Private accounts won't benefit most retirees, and would leave many substantially worse off. Instead of silliness about Social Security, politicians should work on fixing the large and real problems in the government's budget. And undoing most of President Bush's tax giveaways, instead of adding more, would be a good start.
Tags: Politics, Writing, Mindscribbles
