Social Security Is on the Ballot Next Week
    By Dean Baker
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Tuesday 31 October 2006

    With the Congressional elections fast approaching, one issue that has received remarkably little attention is Social Security. While it is understandable that the public would attach a higher priority to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Social Security has barely registered a blip in public opinion surveys on the list of issues on voters' minds.

    Perhaps this is because the public thinks that the battle to protect Social Security has already been won. Two years ago, President Bush put the full political force of his administration behind an effort to privatize Social Security. Thanks to a massive organizing drive led by the AFL-CIO, AARP, the Campaign for America's Future and thousands of local groups around the country, the drive to privatize Social Security was beaten back.

    Not only was President Bush unable to get the Democratic support in the Senate that he would have needed to end a filibuster, he was unable to sustain a united front among Republicans. Many Republicans refused to publicly support President Bush's efforts, and some prominent Republicans actually spoke in opposition to the privatization of Social Security.

    Stopping the privatization of Social Security was a great victory for democracy. After all, the program is hugely popular, regularly scoring 90 percent approval rating in polls asking people's assessment of various government programs. The program does exactly what it was intended to do, providing a core retirement income for over 40 millions workers and their survivors, and disability benefits to another 8 million.

    It has minimal fraud, and its administrative costs are less than one twentieth as large as for private sector insurers. The program is also fundamentally sound, with the most recent projections from the Congressional Budget Office showing that it can pay all scheduled benefits for the next 40 years with no changes whatsoever.

    In short, there is no reason that the public should have allowed the program to be privatized. People like Social Security as it is, and it can continue on its current path long into the future. Privatization would have simply raised administrative costs while reducing the size of the benefit for future retirees, in addition to adding risk. While we may have to make changes to the program in the distant future, there is no need to undertake such changes now, especially at a time when the public has been badly misled about the financial health of the program.

    But this story is history at the moment. Over the last few weeks, President Bush has repeatedly said that he intends to bring back his plans to privatize Social Security if the Republicans maintain control of Congress. Since he has raised this issue on several different occasions, in different contexts, presumably it was not a slip of the tongue. We should take President Bush at his word - if the Republicans win the elections next week, then he will again try to privatize Social Security.

    Voters must understand this fact when they go to cast their ballots. They should know where the candidates stand on Social Security privatization. Toward this end, the media should be pressing candidates to present their view of Social Security privatization, and the activists who led the campaign in 2005 should again be raising the issue in every public forum available.

    Many people were surprised in 2004 when President Bush announced just after the election that he intended to use his "political capital" to push for the privatization of Social Security. After all, he had barely mentioned his plans for Social Security during the presidential campaign. His proposals for privatization seemed to be coming from nowhere.

    But, this time he is giving fair warning. He has said clearly that he will view the re-election of a Republican Congress as a mandate for privatizing Social Security. This is one time where we should take President Bush very seriously.