Privatization of Social Security in the USA



 

As you know, many big corporations have been advocating the privatization of Social Security.  This week in Congress, their powerful friends tried to make them happy.

The House Ways and Means Committee actually held a hearing on privatization.  They discussed the different ways workers' money could be taken out of their checks and invested in risky stocks and bonds, with the only guaranteed benefits going to Wall Street bankers who will manage the privatized accounts.

You see, many of the members of the Committee came to Washington as part of the Republican Party's Contract With America in 1994.  But I believe that there is a far more fundamental contract, a social contract entered into almost seventy years ago between the United States of America and our parents and our grand parents.  Its very name tells us what it is and why it is needed.  It is social SECURITY not social insecurity.  It is not a guessing game, it is not a gamble or a gambit, it is something that four generations of American have come to totally depend on, to rely on.  It allows them to sleep at night knowing their golden years will be safe and secure.  It is our contract with our parents.

The privatization of accounts is a revolutionary assault on the very basis of the Social Security trust fund.  No fuzzy math can change the fact that retirement funds placed in private accounts are speculative and vulnerable and variable. Additionally, drawing off funds from the Social Security system now by sequestering them away in private accounts, places current recipients in clear jeopardy. 

Instead of addressing the long-term financial challenges of the Social Security system, my colleagues on the right are advocating sending senior citizens a certificate "guaranteeing" benefits in perpetuity. 

No silly theatrical diplomas can undo reality.  People are not made secure by theatrics, they are made secure by guaranteed income. The facts are quite simple; the arithmetic is very clear.  If the Social Security trust funds are depleted by privatization, there is no way to guarantee the monthly payments to our senior citizens.  In other words, the social contract will be broken, broken on the backs of the very people who built the greatness of America, those we so boldly call "the greatest generation."

Hubert H. Humphrey said almost 25 years ago that "the moral test of government is how it treats its senior citizens at the twilight of life."  Privatization of social security would make government flunk that moral test.

Under privatization, the big guys get protected while the average people who play by the rules  -- Mr. And Mrs. Babylon  -- get cast aside.  This is Enron writ large.  The very rich who do not rely on Social Security for their retirement are secure.  Ordinary working families are not only gambling and speculating away their future, but risking the current benefits of their parents.  Big guy, protected.  Little guys, screwed.  Not on my watch.  Not while I'm in this Congress and have any breath to my voice.