An Excellent New Krugman Art: Spearing the Beast

[BlueInRed]

He's really pulling no punches with this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/opinion/08krugman.html

<snip>
President Bush isn't trying to reform Social Security. He isn't even trying to "partially privatize" it. His plan is, in essence, to dismantle the program, replacing it with a system that may be social but doesn't provide security. And the goal, as with his tax cuts, is to undermine the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.

Why do I say that the Bush plan would dismantle Social Security? Because for Americans who enter the work force after the plan goes into effect and who choose to open private accounts, guaranteed benefits - income you receive after retirement even if everything else goes wrong - would be nearly eliminated.

. . .

Why expose workers to that much risk? Ideology. "Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state," declares Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth and the Cato Institute. "If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state."

By the welfare state, Mr. Moore means Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - social insurance programs whose purpose, above all, is to protect Americans against the extreme economic insecurity that prevailed before the New Deal. The hard right has never forgiven F.D.R. (and later L.B.J.) for his efforts to reduce that insecurity, and now that the right is running Washington, it's trying to turn the clock back to 1932.
<snip>

[sellitman]

1. Krugman is a National Treasure.

Along with Will Pitt of course!

[ailsagirl]

2. And Bush is a national disgrace

The alcoholic wife-beater who lives down the street would do a better job than this cretin.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Krugman always hits the nail on the head.

I have been saying we should be saying "dismantling", not "privatizing" since W started to discuss his Social Security plan, since it was obvious what he and his minions had in mind right from the start.
It was another chance for the Democrats to "frame the debate" and in this example to state the case accurately and let the public know what was actually going to happen.

[BlueInRed]

4. kick for Krugman

[papau]

5. Spearing the Beast (there'll be no compromise on Soc Sec)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/opinion/08krugman.html?oref=login

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Spearing the Beast (there'll be no compromise on Soc Sec)
By PAUL KRUGMAN

resident Bush isn't trying to reform Social Security. He isn't even trying to "partially privatize" it. His plan is, in essence, to dismantle the program, replacing it with a system that may be social but doesn't provide security. And the goal, as with his tax cuts, is to undermine the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.

Why do I say that the Bush plan would dismantle Social Security? Because for Americans who entered the work force after the plan went into effect and who chose to open private accounts, guaranteed benefits - income you receive after retirement even if everything else goes wrong - would be nearly eliminated.

Here's how it would work. First, workers with private accounts would be subject to a "clawback": in effect, they would have to mortgage their future benefits in order to put money into their accounts.

Second, since private accounts would do nothing to improve Social Security's finances - something the administration has finally admitted - there would be large benefit cuts in addition to the clawback.

Jason Furman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the guaranteed benefits left to an average worker born in 1990, after the clawback and the additional cuts, would be only 8 percent of that worker's prior earnings, compared with 35 percent today. This means that under Mr. Bush's plan, workers with private accounts that fared poorly would find themselves destitute.<snip>

Any deficit reduction will come from spending cuts. Many of those cuts won't make it through Congress, but Mr. Bush may well succeed in imposing cuts in child care assistance and food stamps for low-income workers. He may also succeed in severely squeezing Medicaid - the only one of the three great social insurance programs specifically intended for the poor and near-poor, and therefore the most politically vulnerable.

All of this explains why it's foolish to imagine some sort of widely acceptable compromise with Mr. Bush about Social Security. Moderates and liberals want to preserve the America F.D.R. built. Mr. Bush and the ideological movement he leads, although they may use F.D.R.'s image in ads, want to destroy it.

[yinkaafrica]

6. If the Democrats allow this to pass we are all doomed

(Then again, perhaps we are all doomed anyway.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. dupe

of http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x104371

[applegrove]

8. I cannot wait to see the Bush assumptions behind his numbers.

I think Bush is assuming SS investment will take place outside the US. Business in Canada is trying to Bush the Canadian Government to allow more than 30% of Canadian Savings Retirement Accounts to be in foreign markets. Why?

Because the growth in the world will be in foreign markets. It will not be in Canada or the USA markets. Which means there will be a problem with deflations and jobs. Which means people will be even more dependant on government. And also means nobody should get a big mortgage right now.

But don't tell the people that!

[bklyncowgirl]

9. This is their end game

Run up the deficits to force spending cuts to social and regulatory programs. Their ultimate goal is to:

Privatize everything. The goal is profit--not efficiency.

Eliminate regulations that get in the way of profit.

Force wages of the vast majority of Americans down so that corporations can make an even greater profit.

Anything else is secondary.