President Barack Obama's weekly address Saturday should remind us that privatizing Social Security remains a priority, if not a dream, for some members of the Republican Party.
Obama used the 75th anniversary of Social Security to promise "to protect it from Republican leaders in Congress who have made privatization a key part of their agenda."
On one level, it might seem amazing the recent Wall Street meltdown that required government financial intervention has not stopped some Republicans from dreaming about handing over Social Security money to investment bankers. But it has to be viewed in this context: Overall, ideological Republicans want to destroy Social Security, and the best way to do it would be to hand it over to the greed and incompetence of Wall Street. The entire program, under the selfish auspices of unscrupulous investment bankers, would be insolvent in a generation or less.
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, has proposed "the personal accounts" scam again in which younger workers can invest Social Security money. Ryan, who is the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, argues falsely that Social Security is going broke. This is a GOP talking point that's been around for quite some time. The system, as predicted now, is funded fully through 2037. Even then, the system would be funded at 75 percent. That's hardly going broke. There's plenty of time to fix the funding shortfall.
Essentially we have 27 years to pass a sensible measure slightly raising taxes on the country's wealthiest citizens and corporations to assure a decent retirement for workers. If current trends continue, the growing wealth disparity between the nation's richest people and everyone else should at some point become a huge wake-up call for voters in the next 27 years.
Virtually every adult in this country knows or has known someone relying on Social Security. Along with Medicare, it remains one of the most popular government programs in the nation. When Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, it's unlikely he hoped that one glorious day in the future investment bankers would use the money to skim off millions of dollars in profits. Handing Social Security over to bankers would be wrong and irresponsible. It would be a grave, historical mistake.
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