Crisis? What Crisis?
Here is a post I wrote in response to an article on Social Security reform in one of my favorite upstart libertarian electronic publishing venues, Brainwash (a mainstay hyperlink on the right). If any reform is to be discussed seriously, there is much work to be done. Right now, it seems as if the AARP and the usual cadre of lefist journalists are having their way. Hopefully the President is in the midst of a rope-a-dope "strategery," but I have no hopes that is in fact the case....
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Mr. Kinsey's brief analysis in the Los Angeles Times -- and the increasing journalistic chorus that there is "no crisis" -- are the natural byproduct of (1) the strategic and substantive failures of the White House and (2) the naked cowardice of the Republican Congressional leadership.
The media's refusal to acknowledge the massive unfunded liabilities precipitated by the New Deal/Great Society welfare state shows that ignorance in defense of statism is no vice. To wit: Rolling Stone magazine (whose target demographic would most benefit from individual accounts) has been quick to the punch, with a cover headline proclaiming "The Fake Social Security Crisis."
The White House needs to settle on a proposal and not delegate such responsibility to the Social Security Administration. This gives the appearance that it is no longer a priority and also gives rise to the appearance that the SSA is a political shill. Further, Congressional leadership needs to show a modicum of measured restraint and stop publicly carping about "dead horses" before a proposal is settled upon.
The one proposal that seems to have the most traction at present -- allowing younger workers to devote 2% of their payroll taxes to an individual account, up to $1,000 per year, on a voluntary basis -- is a modest one. What politician ever raises concerns when $500 or $1,000 child tax deductions are triumphantly forwarded whenever a tax relief package is under discussion?
Until there is some real leadership from those who invoke the "Ownership Society," confusion will rule they day. Positive poll numbers will wane with talk about roulette, uncertainty, the public good, and any other phantoms of economic gloom the welfare state pimps can conjure up. That Social Security itself is always subject to political caprices will be ignored.
The end result may be an indifferent electorate at best, and an indignant one at worst. And those of us who support private accounts that are relatively free of political gamesmanship can only shrug our shoulders and invoke the refrain: "Who is John Galt?"
Given the option, most young Americans will embrace actually owning a good portion of their retirement security instead of dealing with innate political uncertainties. The political class, on the other hand, fears any reform that results in a public increasingly immune to the type of faux-populist, anti-capitalist rhetorical fear mongering that is used to substantiate more government intervention in people's lives and property. In this context, the battle between the people and the powerful is all but a foregone conclusion.
++++++++++
Mr. Kinsey's brief analysis in the Los Angeles Times -- and the increasing journalistic chorus that there is "no crisis" -- are the natural byproduct of (1) the strategic and substantive failures of the White House and (2) the naked cowardice of the Republican Congressional leadership.
The media's refusal to acknowledge the massive unfunded liabilities precipitated by the New Deal/Great Society welfare state shows that ignorance in defense of statism is no vice. To wit: Rolling Stone magazine (whose target demographic would most benefit from individual accounts) has been quick to the punch, with a cover headline proclaiming "The Fake Social Security Crisis."
The White House needs to settle on a proposal and not delegate such responsibility to the Social Security Administration. This gives the appearance that it is no longer a priority and also gives rise to the appearance that the SSA is a political shill. Further, Congressional leadership needs to show a modicum of measured restraint and stop publicly carping about "dead horses" before a proposal is settled upon.
The one proposal that seems to have the most traction at present -- allowing younger workers to devote 2% of their payroll taxes to an individual account, up to $1,000 per year, on a voluntary basis -- is a modest one. What politician ever raises concerns when $500 or $1,000 child tax deductions are triumphantly forwarded whenever a tax relief package is under discussion?
Until there is some real leadership from those who invoke the "Ownership Society," confusion will rule they day. Positive poll numbers will wane with talk about roulette, uncertainty, the public good, and any other phantoms of economic gloom the welfare state pimps can conjure up. That Social Security itself is always subject to political caprices will be ignored.
The end result may be an indifferent electorate at best, and an indignant one at worst. And those of us who support private accounts that are relatively free of political gamesmanship can only shrug our shoulders and invoke the refrain: "Who is John Galt?"
Given the option, most young Americans will embrace actually owning a good portion of their retirement security instead of dealing with innate political uncertainties. The political class, on the other hand, fears any reform that results in a public increasingly immune to the type of faux-populist, anti-capitalist rhetorical fear mongering that is used to substantiate more government intervention in people's lives and property. In this context, the battle between the people and the powerful is all but a foregone conclusion.
posted by Nikos A. Leverenz @ 6:05 PM
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