Securing Social Security’s Future

Courtesy of the Grand Old Party. Bad ideas don’t go away, they just get recycled.

Such is the case with a proposed privatization of Social Security.  It was last proposed by President Bush during his State of the Union Address in 2005.  Tonight, in the GOP response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is expected to make another call to institute what would be a disastrous plan for the program.

Imagine what would have happened had President Bush succeeded in 2005.  People with well planned private retirement plans took a bath in 2008 when they market collapsed under the cowpies that these Robber Barons threw on the system.

Credit default swaps and the packaging of chopped up bad mortgages sold as AAA investments that predictably tanked would have taken down Social Security as well as these private investments.  The latter practice was especially damaging as it exacerbated the damage as the mortgages failed not just once, but several times over.

Those who depended on Social Security would not have had the means to recoup what they lost, as many people who lost private retirement packages have been able to do to some effect. It would have created an even larger gulf between the haves and have nots.  So Bush’s greatest failure, as he peddled not being able to privatize Social Security while hawking his historical fiction this past fall, became the middle class and poor of this country’s saving grace.

Why would this come up again after it was defeated not even six years ago?  There are many reasons. One reason is that the Republicans are clinging to the myth that the American people spoke and wanted to move all the way back to the policies that helped dig us in the deep hole we are in now. The most relevant cause, especially is a post-Citizens United country is that the GOP’s masters on Wall Street have dictated that this is what they want.

The wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Wall Street know that they will not be getting another bail out.  They fear that Elizabeth Warren and people of her ilk will push for more regulation that will keep them from tanking the economy with any new scams that they come up with to defraud consumers and add to their ever growing piece of the economic pie. They see the the 2.6 trillion dollars of surplus that Social Security currently holds and think that they are entitled to have it.

I am certain that the GOP will use their thugs at Fox to push their agenda, how having control of where your retirement money goes is wholly American, an undeniable right that they will write in crayon on the Constitution, as they are prone to do when it fits.

We cannot allow the misinformation to stick.

As a counter to the impending deluge of misinformation from the Right, I am posting an informational link on Social Security from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, including an audio file of Senator Sanders and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island discussing their stance on the issue and taking questions from media members.

I am of course a huge fan of Senator Sanders, his views on this issue are dead on. I encourage you to test whatever facts you may think need disputed.  You will find that you cannot. He is a true champion of the program and does not need to resort to the status quo of 21st century politics: bend the truth to the point of breaking it to make his points.

Privatizing Social Security would be the lamest thing that President Obama has ever done, and he has had some lame moments all in the name of reaching across the aisle.  Please Mr. President when you reach out this time, reach out to your constituents.  They need you to be strong in your convictions and campaign promises on this one. Take the lead of Senator Sanders; they need you to be the champion of Social Security.