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1/19/05 Reform Social Security? The President's goal of reforming social security faces two obstacles: Republican fear and Democratic hostility. The reason for the first is obvious: Republicans were hurt in the 1980's by Reagan's attempt to deal with Social Security. The reason for the latter is less obvious, but bears examining. Democrats have tried to shift the burden of Social Security off of working-class people. When income tax cuts were proposed early in the Bush Administration, Democrats tried to give "income" tax cuts to people who pay no tax, but who only pay into Social Security; thus they basically tried to take the burden off the poor of paying for their own Social Security, shifting that burden onto payers of income tax. That attempt failed, but in thirty or forty years, if we do nothing, there will come a time when there will be no practical choice if benefits are to be paid out: payers of income tax will have to supplement the payments to Social Security in order to keep the system running. Once that floodgate has been opened, it will no longer seem radical to take the burden off the working poor who pay very little into the system anyway. And then, at long last, the program which the Democrats created with the promise that it would enable people to pay for their own "social security" will finally be converted into another classic Democratic redistribution of wealth from the rich, who rarely vote Democrat, to the poor, who almost always do. And by providing them even more handouts, they will solidify their demagogic hold on power. It is clear why Democrats see no benefit to "fixing" Social Security now, which would tend to guarantee the viability of the current system, meaning the working poor will continue to pay for their own retirement indefinitely. Even worse, if those working poor are allowed to invest some of their own money, they might leave the ranks of the working poor and become middle or even upper-middle class, and then they might well even stop voting Democrat altogether. It behooves the Democrats to keep them poor and pay them off. It behooves Republicans to help them pay their own way and help them become rich. You do the math. Modified: 02/01/2005 |
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