The Old Folks

So, of course the whole point of Bush's Social Security "reform" is political. As long as enough old folks are pulling government checks they're likely to vote Democratic. As long as young folks feel they're pulling their own weight through managing their own retirement investment portfolios the GOP figures it can lock 'em up by separating them from supporting the old folks. It's political math, and I can respect that.

The system really isn't all that broken. Some estimates are that relatively modest increases in the payroll tax and relatively modest decreases in the rate of benefit growth would take care of it all. No one disagrees that the intake/outtake will hit the red at some point. It's just not that catastrophic a tilt. So the only real reason for all this "reform" is the political reasons given above.

Social Security was never intended to be the primary foundation of old age income security. It was designed to buttress other income, which is does marvelously. In my dad's day one got the gold watch and the company pension. Along with his SS, he and my mom were able to live a comfortable enough life. One or the other was tight, together the bills could be paid and a pleasant retirement had. Nowadays, folks will have various 401(k)'s and such, or other investments. Social Security is there to provide enough additional cash to ensure that it's all livable.

I have an older family member who serves as a model case. She cashed out the family home for a decent sum, then turned it over for a smaller place and lives off dividends generated by the rest. The investment income in and of itself isn't adequate for a livable wage, so to speak. With SS, it is. That's what it was designed for, that's what it does. So why "fix" it if it ain't broken? To dis' the AARP, of course. It's really the only reason.

Fortunately, even the GOP can't swallow a lot of this. Oh, there will be some modest proposal to maybe give perhaps some people some flexibility so the Bush team can claim victory, but that's about it. All the Dems have to do is drag this out until the end of the year when the 2006 campaign season starts and the GOP runs for cover.

But I'm not a complete naysayer here. There are a couple of tweaks we could tack on, perhaps linking benefits closer to overall income level, stuff like that. But even there I'm conservative. FDR's brilliance in setting this up so that workers kicked in, unlike many other industrial systems where the public sector and/or industry do the heavy lifting, is that it locks in the system. Start cutting off the rich folks and they'll turn against it, which screws the middle and lower classes in turn.

The Media Blab:

This debate has led to an interesting "What's in a name?" discussion among the media. By following the Bush team's lead in calling this "reform", they are in effect agreeing about the need for reform, which is part of the debate itself. So they say it's a "revision" or "reworking" or something similar. Which just opens them up for charges of anti-Bush bias.

But it's about time. In a time where the line between government propaganda and real news has become invisible to too many viewers, what with stage managed "town halls", plants in press pools and government payments to presumably impartial commentators, the rest who haven't been co-opted have a duty to report what actually is. It's fair to call it a "Social Security revision" because that's what it is. George Will outlined the goal in a recent column, to keep retirees from being so-called "wards of the government", the keystone of the (kaff!) "Ownership Society." It's a different way of doing business, with radically different goals than present. So call it that.

This debate hits home. In eight years I'll be AARP-eligible, so maybe I'm too close to relying on the current system to see it objectively. (Just like those Kerry-voting New Yorkers are too close to gays and terrorist attacks to see those objectively). I'll also be paying a mortgage into my '70s, at current rates. So I gotta plan.

Maybe this debate oughta be "grandfathered." If the next generation wants to toss dirt over their own retirement security, let 'em. Just let me die first.