Hail To The Chief (If You Don't I'll Have To Kill You)
I Am The Chief, So You Better Watch Your Step, You BastardsObviously impressed with this blog, President Bush swung by my hometown on Friday. Okay, that's a lie. He was in town to talk about Social Security. The South Bend/Notre Dame area always provides a receptive audience; he's been here six times, of which I've been present for two.
I was not available on Friday, and it scarcely mattered since I really don't care about Social Security. The way I see it, when I reach retirement age the system will either be long since broke or fixed to some degree. Either way I have my own plans for retirement, mostly entailing cashing my 401(k), driving to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and betting my nest egg on Red. No, Black. Ahh, the choices.
At any rate, it's a safer bet than the solvency of Social Security if Democrats and their followers in the left blogosphere have their way. After months of insisting there was a looming disaster in Social Security during the 2000 presidential election, they're now arguing that There Is No Crisis. Conveniently, when the solution seemed to be stashing taxpayer money in government "lockboxes" instead of returning it through tax breaks, it was panic time; now that the proposal on the table involves privatization in individual safe-growth "lockboxes," they've suddenly located the chill pill in their prescription drug plan. But I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
I shouldn't be surprised by them anymore, but the Democrats' strategy here just astounds me. Well, not as a political maneuver: pandering to their base just might work in this case; but it really is an affront to any sense of logic and rationality. We can argue about whether the system will break down in 2019 or 2042 or the year after the Cubs win the World Series until it actually does go broke, but the fact that the pay-now-receive-later system is fundamentally flawed is not in doubt. When sixteen people paid for the benefits of one, it made more sense. As our population ages, it strains credulity more by the year.
Nobody would voluntarily sign up for a system like this, at least not now that the integrity of it is questionable. I wouldn't volunteer to pay for half or a third of somebody's steak dinner this month and hope that the deal works long enough that two or three people come around to pay for mine next month. At least with ordinary Ponzi schemes, like Amway, I can make the system work if I recruit enough people to serve in my pyramid. But the AARP and other groups representing seniors — whose benefits we'll guarantee in the short term no matter the cost even if the system were totally privatized — wish for this forced system to remain basically inviolable so that everyone younger than them risks the Roulette Wheel Of Fate.
The worst thing about the Democrats' position is that President Bush offered them the chance to take the lead on reform. It's no accident that all four of the plan ideas he mentioned in his most recent State Of The Union were proposed by Democrats: Tim Penny, Bill Clinton, John Breaux, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. If they chose to, the Democrats could have made proposals, counterproposals, and compromises and then taken credit for whatever actions short of privatization actually became law, just as they did on prescription drugs and Medicare.
But that would require that they have good ideas. So we have them pushing the senior citizens out to protest the incremental and voluntary diversion of one-twenty-fifth of payroll taxes on the grounds that it will jeapordize benefits they'll get no matter what. We have President Bush being forced to make the case for something that should be a no-brainer. And we have me, who ordinarily would be thrilled with a Presidential visit but ignored it because the entire bickering irritates me.
So if you're in Vegas sometime around July 2045, look for me. I'll either be the geezer crying in the street or the one on his way to the Mustang Ranch with a pocketful of Viagra paid for by your kids and grandkids.
P.S. the title is a joke from the Lemmon-Garner flick My Fellow Americans. If you thought it was a commentary on how the Chimpy McBushitler regime handles dissidents, well, not even Social Security will save you.
posted by Marsh @ 3:21 AM
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