Joe Conason: Republicans revive a debate they lost, badly

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/02/04/socsecgop
Joe Conason
Thursday, Feb 4, 2010 16:05 EST

Republicans revive a debate they lost, badly

Privatizing Social Security is again on the GOP agenda -- a political mistake that worried Democrats should welcome
By Joe Conason


For worried Democrats, the sudden return of Social Security privatization as a fashionable nostrum among Republicans should lift their gloom. Or it would if only the Democratic leaders understood what to do when their opponents deliberately step into a messy dogpile again.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., a pair of the most outspoken conservatives in Congress, are trying to revive plans to transform Social Security into a system of private accounts (while cutting benefits for anyone under 55 years old). Speaking for Republicans on the House Budget Committee, Ryan proposes a “road map” for Social Security that strongly resembles the old Bush plan. The Ryan version would phase in individual accounts funded by an increasing portion of FICA taxes, limited to investments in a list of approved funds and "guaranteed" by the federal government. Meanwhile, Hensarling simply asserted on "Hardball" that "you can get better healthcare and better retirement security if you go to a defined contribution plan," which is the same idea.

Junking social insurance for private accounts is a Republican obsession -- and a Wall Street fantasy -- that dates back decades (see "The Raw Deal" for a history of the recurring right-wing campaigns to kill Social Security and their financing by the corporate elite). While there are many sound arguments to maintain the current system with a few actuarial tweaks, the most compelling is the disastrous corporate stewardship of the financial markets in recent years.

Did cheery Republicans like Hensarling somehow fail to notice the sickening fall of stock indexes between 2007 and 2009? The only annuity fully exempt from the economic ruin brought on by the investment banks and insurance giants was ... Social Security. Yet despite all the fresh evidence of greed, swindling and incompetence on Wall Street, the Republicans have renewed their calls for privatization. "We had this debate in Social Security a few years ago," Hensarling recalled a bit wistfully. "Now, ultimately we weren’t victorious ..."

No, they certainly weren’t. The privatization fiasco played an important part in the inexorable decline of President Bush’s approval ratings and the removal of his party from power. The plunge began as soon as the White House announced that Social Security privatization would be the primary domestic policy objective of his second term. Public rejection of that plan -- with more than 60 percent consistently disapproving in nearly every independent poll -- soon overwhelmed the multimillion-dollar corporate campaign behind it.

Bush’s own popularity never recovered. And then came the 2006 midterm election, also known as "the thumping," which smashed Karl Rove’s dream of a long era of absolute Republican domination. If that’s really what they want to talk about, then Democrats should accommodate them with a smile.

[DrDan]

1. absolutely agree - they should have offered Tyan all the airtime he wanted

for that privatization proposal.

It is a killer

[opihimoimoi]

2. What is affecting their brains??? Where do them Pubs come from that they

attempt stoopid over and over?

These dudes are nuts,,,

[groovedaddy]

3. I wonder - had bush & co. managed to privatize social security before '07

would this massive transfer of wealth into the market have staved off the crash?
It's a really BAD idea though.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. Maybe that was the whole point

They probably saw what was coming and thought that they could either raid SS for one more "hit" for their corporate buddies and/or keep things from totally imploding on their watch and damaging them politically. Of course, they also knew that bringing down SS would effectively bring down what was left of the New Deal.
Fortunately, SS privatization proved to be a "bridge too far" with almost everybody except for Wall Streeters and Democrats in Congress were uncharacteristically vocal united against SS privatization. Now, if we could get the Democrats in Congress to act like THAT when they are IN power, we'd all be in a lot better shape IMHO. The Republicans attempting to promote this idea AGAIN in spite of the pain it caused them in 2005 should be viewed by the Democratic Party as a godsend for them.
President Obama said he wanted to hear what the Republican's ideas are but the more we actually hear of them, the more their ideas are exposed as BAD ones! People REALLY need to KNOW what the Republicans are peddling and once they do, it will make them less likely to actually vote for them. Most people, frankly, don't know much about what the Republicans REALLY want to do and they take great pains to mask their true agenda and deflect attention away from themselves by inciting "poutrage" against the Democratic Party, liberals, et. al and blanketing the airways with their propaganda so that people simply get mad at the Democrats and start thinking that they need to vote for more Republicans to get things done (which usually DOES happen-just not the changes we need and want).