Grooviosity. Reform social security, man, because you can’t trust anyone over 30. Cool.
These doughy, briefcase GOP baby boomer geeks have always had a case of arrested development. They started their “revolution” in their 40’s. In their 50’s they’ve discovered the “generation gap.” The rest of us got over this intergenerational squabbling a couple of decades ago. It’s never too late to act like a teen-age ass.
For younger workers, the Social Security system has serious problems that will grow worse with time. Social Security was created decades ago, for a very different era. In those days people didn’t live as long, benefits were much lower than they are today, and a half century ago, about 16 workers paid into the system for each person drawing benefits. Our society has changed in ways the founders of Social Security could not have foreseen.
Man, if only those old people would just die younger, or at least take less money, we wouldn’t have this problem.
Right now, a set portion of the money you earn is taken out of your paycheck to pay for the Social Security benefits of today’s retirees. If you are a younger worker, I believe you should be able to set aside part of that money in your own retirement account, so you can build a nest egg for your own future.
… instead of having to worry about your revolting, diseased parents.
As we fix Social Security, we also have the responsibility to make the system a better deal for younger workers. And the best way to reach that goal is through voluntary personal retirement accounts.
Awesome. A better deal for me!
It is time to extend [the same] security, and choice, and ownership to young Americans.
Listen kids. Here’s your choice. Either keep social security as it is or plan to have your parents —- people my age — living with you for the last twenty years of our sick, decrepit lives. This will be as you’re putting your kids through the privatized school system and saving for medical expenses with your “medical savings account” while putting something aside for your kids’ college and your own meager retirement. Good luck with that. That’s the “choice” you’re getting here.
Bush says nobody over 55 will see any change. I’m 48. Somehow, I don’t think I’m one of those “younger workers” who is oging to experience the miracle of the market. I’m not the solution, I’m the problem. There are a huge number of people my age out there. We who were born in the mid 50’s are the biggest bulge of the baby boom cohort. And we are the ones who are first in line to get fucked if this social security “reform” is passed.
But the good news is that by that time our children will have these lovely fat portfolios. They’ll be happy to take us in if our “personalized social security” doesn’t stretch quite as far as George W. Bush says is will. Right?
Oh, and by the way, kids. You’ll be the ones stuck with the gazillions of dollars in debtthis whole useless scam is going to cost. Don’t be fools.
the president is now saying — and saying emphatically and militantly, with an eye on his critics — that if you’re 55 you’re home free, nothing to worry about when it comes to phasing out Social Security.
One might observe that this is a rather unfortunate dividing in half of the country. If you’re 50 today, you spent most of your highest earning years not only paying into Social Security, but advance-paying even more, under the 1983 Social Security Commission which put in the extra level of tax to build up the Trust Fund. Now you’re hosed. Too bad.
The important point though is that this is simply not true. And the defenders of Social Security would be straight-up fools to let the president get away with a guarantee as obviously bogus as that one.
Maybe they can try to finesse those older than 55 into believing him with a direct, straight up lie, but he’s not even trying to finesse those of us who are just slightly younger than that. And we are a huge demographic cohort. The transition costs, which the Preznit doesn’t address at all, are going to hit this bulge of the baby boom right between the eyes because most of us are under 55. And ALL of us have been paying “extra” since Uncle Alan Greenspan told us to in 1983.
I think we need to start talking to people my age. We are following this closely because retirement issues in general are beginning to get our attention. We are the biggest single age group in the country and we are about to get fucked.
Update, Update:
Ooooh. I see that we are talking about “benefit offsets” which just means that any “extra” money you make in your “personal” account goes into the pot. No ownership, no guarantee, no nothing.
This is more and more ideological by the day. It’s just about tearing up the new deal and destroying people’s trust in government, period.
Personally, I plan to do both, and maybe a little drunk blogging as well. There’s no way in hell I can get through that mush without a little help from Demon Rum.
Here’s something to think about, however. This is the first speech done by Bush’s new speechwriter William McGurn. David Kushnet wrote about him in TNR recently:
As president Bush begins his second term, he’s likely to sound less affable and more argumentative, reflecting the rhetoric of a new chief speechwriter who has constantly criticized the American Catholic clergy for being too tough on capitalism and too soft on abortion.
[…]
Gerson made Bush sound like a preacher, but McGurn made his name as a polemicist. He’s a Catholic conservative, with a distinctive intellectual pedigree. Liberal Catholics such as E. J. Dionne and even some conservative Catholics such as Pat Buchanan have criticized capitalism’s excesses for weakening families and communities. But McGurn favors free trade, opposes even the most basic regulations of corporate conduct, and has harsh words for an American labor movement that the Catholic Church has historically supported. McGurn’s allies appear to be the late Treasury Secretary William Simon and the theologian Michael Novak, both of whom thought the U.S. Catholic Bishops were too favorably disposed toward the government’s role in regulating the economy and assisting the poor.
When he writes under his own byline, McGurn’s views on economics are just as conservative as, and even more quirky than, The Wall Street Journal’s unsigned editorials. In 2003, he and liberal economist Rebecca Blank coauthored a debate titled, Is the Market Moral?, which was published by the Brookings Institution. In the book, McGurn compares the thriving free-market economy of Hong Kong, where he once worked as a reporter, with the regimentation of old-style Chinese Communism. He contends that capitalism not only creates wealth but also rewards good behavior because it “depends on virtues–self-restraint, honesty, courage, diligence, the willingness to defer gratification.” Presenting himself as both an economic realist and a conservative moralist, McGurn concludes that the best way to make sure that the economy advances social goals is not through government regulation but rather by changing corporate culture. He suggests that moral suasion can discourage executives from cooking their books, exploiting their workers, or despoiling the environment.
Bring it on, baby. We’ll run Elliot Spitzer against Ken Lay.
Displaying talents that will serve him well as a presidential speechwriter, McGurn’s style is eloquent, simple–and slippery. He makes the case against communism, socialism, and the most heavy-handed forms of government regulation in this country; but he also criticizes programs that have existed since the New Deal and have been accepted by Republican as well as Democratic presidents: the minimum wage, job safety standards, environmental protection, and American opposition to child labor overseas. He explains his skepticism about public institutions by citing three of the least popular: welfare as we used to know it, the post office, and urban public schools. While acknowledging that his views contradict many Catholic social teachings, he repeatedly refers to Pope John Paul II to support his arguments, even though the Pope seems to support a much more regulated kind of capitalism than McGurn. And McGurn has also published pieces differing with the Pope’s opposition to the war in Iraq and criticizing Archbishop Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice, for saying that there is no such thing as a just war anymore.
[…]
Like Gerson, McGurn is a graceful writer, capable of crafting clear and original prose. But unlike Gerson, McGurn is also a brawler who loves to take hard shots at his adversaries and even his allies. He attacked Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu for opposing school vouchers but sending her own kids to private schools. He told the Denver Archdiocese, “On the great issue of life, the bishops failed America’s unborn children at about the same time they were failing the living American children molested by the priests under their charge.”
So while Gerson’s rhetoric soothed, McGurn’s will singe. Writing in The Wall Street Journal five years ago, John Fund credited McGurn with this “iron law of politics”: “Conservatives win by clarifying issues, liberals by fudging them.” Maybe so, but George W. Bush–and Ronald Reagan before him–made warm-hearted arguments for policies that Americans might otherwise have rejected as hard-hearted. Bush couldn’t ask for a writer who’s less likely to fudge distinctions than McGurn. Now let’s see if Bush benefits from clarity.
“Conservatives win by clarifying issues, liberals by fudging them.”
Yeah. Tell it to Frank Luntz. That’s why we are going to hear all about “personalizing” your retirement tonight instead of privatizing social security. They’re “clarifying” the issue.
This could be good. If McGurn has Bush coming out swinging this term it could end up being the Newt Gingrich Story, Part II. Without all those nice little sermons, George W. Bush is a pinched, mean man and it shows. I have a feeling that McGurn may just bring out the real him.
Wampum has all the Koufax semi-final nominations up. I highly recommend that you check out the category for best post. I just spent an hour over there reading the best of the blogosphere over the last year and it was awe inspiring. There are some very, very fine writers in the left blogosphere. (And Hugh Hewitt can kiss my ass*)
Once again, toss some coin to Wampum for doing this thing. It’s a labor of love but nobody should have to pay for the privilege.
* Hewitt claims in his little roll of toilet paper called “Blog” that the only good writers are on the right which I suppose would be true if you consider smug circle jerking and squealing Bush pompom shaking actual writing. Heh. Indeed.
Here’s a new site that serves as a handy primer about the Oil For Food wingnut feeding frenzy called Oil-for-Food Facts.org
If anyone wonders what this ridiculous obsession is really all about, this article by Joe Conason spells it out. It’s the Same Old … Stuff:
If American conservatism is truly the fount of “new ideas,” as its publicists incessantly assure us, why do conservatives constantly promote the stale old ideas that obsessed them in 1962?
Back then, the extremists of the ultra-right regarded the United Nations as the advance guard of the international communist conspiracy. “Get the U.S. out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the U.S.!” blared the bumper-sticker slogan of the John Birch Society, while the National Review called for the U.N. to be “liquidated.”
Today, although the rhetoric is not quite so shrill, the Birch Society’s ideological descendants still feel the same way. With the U.N. beset by scandal, the right can’t resist the opportunity to sever American ties with the world organization. Heedless as always of damaging traditional alliances and America’s global reputation, they have opened a campaign to undermine and ultimately destroy the U.N. It is a peculiar crusade for Americans to undertake just when the U.S. government is counting on the U.N. to help legitimize the Iraqi elections — the kind of multilateral mission that is becoming even more essential on a planet where failed states threaten the security of everyone.
[…]
For the Bush administration and its conservative allies, the U.N. represents embarrassment and obstruction. Seeing no value in debating and discussing world problems with lesser nations, they regard the U.N. as nothing but an unworthy obstacle to the exercise of American power. To them, the world body symbolizes all that they hate about multilateralism and diplomacy.
Certain starry-eyed neoconservatives broach the idea of a new global organzation that would only admit “legitimate” democratic governments (as defined, perhaps, by the Heritage Foundation or the Wall Street Journal editorial board). In the neocon scenario, the U.N. would be hollowed into a meaningless, impoverished shell, and left to such pariahs as Kim Jong Il and the Iranian mullahs.
As fantasy, this explains much about the mind-set of the neoconservative right in the aftermath of the Iraq debacle. They need somebody to blame, other than themselves, and Annan provides a most convenient target. As policy, however, the abandonment of the U.N. is just as crazy as when the John Birch Society printed its first bumper sticker — as the neocons might acknowledge if they listened to our closest allies.
These guys have an list and they’re checking each item off one at a time. If circumstance change they just find a new rationale and plow on.
The Birchers wanted to destroy both social security and the UN back in 1962. They think their time has come. It’s just that simple.
Kidding On The Square is talking about honor, something our culture seems to have thrown out by mistake when it packed off hats and slavery. This is a very thought provoking post about American heroes, faux and authentic, old and new. Some people are human and they are also leaders. Some people are neither.
As I listen to Teddy Kennedy challenge Gonzales’ “I was out of the loop” defense on the torture memos, it probably pays to remember what those memos actually said. Here’s a good article by the authors of the new book “The Torture Papers.”
The chronology of the memoranda also demonstrates the increasing rationalization and strained analysis as the objectives grew more aggressive and the position more indefensible–in effect, rationalizing progressively more serious conduct to defend the initial decisions and objectives, to the point where, by the time the first images of Abu Ghraib emerged in public, the government’s slide into its moral morass, as reflected in the series of memos published in this volume, was akin to a criminal covering up a parking violation by incrementally more serious conduct culminating in murder.
[…]
Nor does any claim of a “new paradigm” provide any excuse, or even a viable explanation. The contention, set forth with great emphasis in these memoranda, that al Qaeda, as a fanatic, violent, and capable international organization, represented some unprecedented enemy justifying abandonment of our principles is simply not borne out by historical comparison. The Nazi party’s dominance of the Third Reich is not distinguishable in practical terms from al Qaeda’s influence on the Taliban government as described in these memos.
Al Qaeda’s record of destruction, September 11th notwithstanding–and as a New Yorker who lived, and still lives, in the shadow of the Twin Towers, which cast a long shadow over lower Manhattan even in their absence, I am fully cognizant of the impact of that day–pales before the death machine assembled and operated by the Nazis. Yet we managed to eradicate Nazism as a significant threat without wholesale repudiation of the law of war, or a categorical departure from international norms, even though National Socialism, with its fascist cousins, was certainly a violent and dangerous international movement–even with a vibrant chapter here in the United States.
No kidding. The idea that al Qaeda is some unique form of evil that requires we cast out all norms of civilization is simply mind boggling (Indeed, I get the feeling that it illustrates nothing more than ego run amuck — some kind of competitiveness with the Greatest Generation.)
The biggest threat we face is from nuclear weapons in the wrong hands. But we need to remember that this is not a new problem. Nuclear weapons have been in the hands of America’s mortal enemies for more than 50 years and while they may not have been as nihilistic as these terrorists, they were certainly as prone to accident and misjudgment as any group of humans. The stakes were unimaginable. These were not “suitcase bombs” or “dirty bombs”, as awful as those may be, they were ICBM’s aimed at every American city and if they were launched, the result was likely to be annihilation of the planet. That’s the threat we lived with for almost 50 years. We can handle this terrorist threat without completely losing our values, our wits or our moral authority.
But, the administration is listening to ideologues like Robert J. Delahunty and John C. Yoo, who should be cast into the farthest reaches of academia or think tankery where their hysterical ideas can cause no harm to real people:
When the Senate considers Alberto R. Gonzales’ nomination for attorney general this week, his critics will repeat the accusation that he opened the door to the abuse of Al Qaeda, Afghan and Iraqi prisoners. As Justice Department attorneys in January 2002, we wrote the memos advising that the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war did not apply to the war against Al Qaeda, and that the Taliban lost POW privileges by violating the laws of war. Later that month, Gonzales similarly advised (and President Bush ordered) that terrorists and fighters captured in Afghanistan receive humane treatment, but not legal status as POWs.
“Human rights” advocates have resorted to hyperbole and distortion to attack the administration’s policy. One writer on this page even went so far as to compare it to Nazi atrocities. Such absurd claims betray the real weaknesses in the position taken by Gonzales’ critics. They obscure a basic and immediate question facing the United States: how to adapt to the decline of nation-states as the primary enemy in war.
[…]
Shortly after World War II, nations ratified the Geneva Convention in order to mitigate the cruelty and horror of wars between the large mechanized armies that had laid waste to Europe. Now, the main challenges to peace do not arise from the threat of conflict between large national armies, but from terrorist organizations and rogue nations.
To believe that the Geneva Convention should apply jot-and-tittle to such enemies reminds us of the first generals of the Civil War, who thought that the niceties that were ideals of Napoleonic warfare could be applied to battles fought by massive armies, armed with ever more advanced weapons and aided by civilian-run mass-production factories and industry. War changes, and the laws of war must change with them.
[…]
Unfortunately, multinational terrorist groups have joined nations on the stage of war. They operate without regard to borders and observe no distinction between combatants and civilians. Our weapons for controlling hostile states don’t work well against decentralized networks of suicidal operatives, with no citizens or borders to defend.
There is another name that fits these terrorists a little bit better than an “unprecedented, non-nation state decentralized threat that operates without regard to borders and observes no distinction between combatants and civilians.” They’re called “criminals.” These international criminals do not represent a “nation” but what might be called a gang or a syndicate or a “family.” They can be brought to heel the same way criminal gangs can always be brought to heel. One of the ways that you do it is by enlisting the help of other nations in the manhunts with cooperative police and international quasi military investigations.
The fact is that this isn’t a “war” by any reasonable definition. However, the powers that be have deemed it so, in which case they should not be able to change the rules of warfare to accomodate what isn’t a war in the first place. If it’s a war, then it’s a war, which means that quaint little treaties like the GC cannot just be tossed at will. If it isn’t a war then we should follow the criminal model and use the laws and rules that have been established to to deal with this. This is a bullshit flim-flam that should have been nipped in the bud at the very begining, but because the leadership and opinion makers of this country (including you Andy — and you too Tom) decided that this was a good opportunity wallow in their own self righteous bloodlust instead of using their heads, we are stuck in this ridiculous position where we have elevated a bunch of criminal thugs to the status of warrior kings — exactly where they want to be.
And we are further digging ourselves into a hole by endorsing the use of police interrogation methods that experts throughout the world know don’t work. And because we have denied any use of due process there is no corrective mechanism for the mistakes that are being made by the soldiers in far off lands who, with limited understanding of the culture are “capturing” people who have little or no connection to the criminal enterprise, coercing confessions and holding them indefinitely on that evidence. I just don’t know how we could do this any more ineptly.
But Woo and Delahunty aren’t just talking about terrorists when they say the Geneva Conventions are no longer applicable. They go further and claim that “psuedo-states” are also exempt.
The problem of terrorist groups has been compounded by the emergence of pseudo-states. Pseudo-states often have neither the will nor the means to obey the Geneva Convention. Somalia and Afghanistan were arguably pseudo-states; Iraq under Saddam Hussein was another.
Pseudo-states control areas and populations subject to personal, clan or tribal rule. A leader supported by a small clique (like Hussein and his associates from Tikrit) or a tribal faction (like the Pashtuns in Afghanistan) rule. Political institutions are weak or nonexistent. Loyalties depend on personal relationships with tribal chiefs, sheiks or warlords, rather than allegiance to the nation.
Quasi-political bodies such as the Iraqi Baathist Party, the Taliban or even the Saudi royal family exercise government power. Defeat of the “national” leader or clique typically results in the complete disintegration of the regime.
Well, that definition of psuedo state says that any established non-democratic state is no longer a real state. Iraq, you see, was a psuedo state, so when we invaded it wasn’t a typical war of aggression or choice, we were just toppling a “national” leader, which isn’t the same thing at all. (I hate to bring this up, but Hitler claimed that sovereign borders weren’t sovereign for a bunch of bullshit reasons, too. That’s why the whole blanket condemnation of wars of aggression thing came up in the first place. You say Czechoslovakia, I say Sudetenland.)
Multinational terrorist groups and pseudo-states pose a deep problem for treaty-based warfare. Terrorists thrive on killing civilians and flouting conventional rules of war. Leaders like Hussein and the Taliban’s Mullah Mohammed Omar ignore the fates of their captured soldiers. They have nothing riding on the humane treatment of American prisoners.
A treaty like the Geneva Convention makes perfect sense when it binds genuine nations that can reciprocate humane treatment of prisoners. Its existence and its benefits even argue for the kind of nation-building that uses U.S. troops and other kinds of pressures in places like Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq; more nation-states make all of us safer. But the Geneva Convention makes little sense when applied to a terrorist group or a pseudo-state. If we must fight these kinds of enemies, we must create a new set of rules.
Please. The Bataan death march, the holocaust, the fire-bombing of Dresden and Tokyo and the dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fresh memories when the Geneva Conventions were signed. The people who conceived them had intimate and personal knowledge of the kind of inhumane actions against millions of prisoners, civilians and soldiers the horrors of war can bring. Please don’t say that attacking civilians is unprecedented. It’s just ridiculous. Ill treatment of prisoners? Jesus. Inhumanity wasn’t invented on 9/11 for christs sake.
The reason for the conventions was to establish written civilized norms. There were no illusions about the “binding” of a future Hitler or a future bin Laden, but they sure as hell thought it would bind the United States of America! The idea that 9/11 is something so unique and the hatred of our enemies so threatening that we must discard all the rules that we created in the wake of the most horrifying conflagration in human history is intellectual bankruptcy of the highest order.
Nobody disputes that it was a terrible day or that we had to respond. But this wholesale redefinition of what constitutes torture and what constitutes a nation state in order to accomodate an allegedly unprecedented threat appears more and more like a self-serving excuse to broaden the executive’s power. Re-writing the rules of warfare as necessary to fight this unique threat can then be seen as an extension of that power grab. All the subsequent hemming and hawing is a cover-up of that essential extra-constitutional action.
There are people who have the kind of temperament that is drawn to authoritarian modes of governance. People like John Woo and George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales. These are people who saw 9/11 as a reason to do what they always do when given the opportunity — make their own rules.
The terrorism that people like these are arguing requires a wholesale rejection of all the norms and rules that have brought us to this point in human history is another of the phony crises, like WMD in Iraq and Social Security solvency that they have perpetuated since George W. Bush took office. Al Qaeda is a serious threat. But it is not so serious that WWI and WWII pale in comparison or that we face an unprecedented existential threat. It’s absurd to put it in those terms and it’s a misunderstanding of the problem on such a vast scale that we are actively making the threat worse instead of better.
We are being led by a man who has been convinced that “his” war is bigger than the big one and anything goes. Yet, the single most searing image of our warrior leadership is the president with a bullhorn leading a cheer. I think that says it all.
What used to be called conflict of interest is now called synergy — Jack Grubman
In response to my post on framing below, reader Sara pointed me to Eliot Spitzer’s speech at the National Press Club yesterday for a great example of re-framing the Democratic argument, and it is a really good one.
I urge you to listen to the whole thing because Spitzer is such a great example of the “fighting liberal” we need more of. He points out that the rules of integrity that we all agree and understand must be enforced to keep the system running efficiently can only be done by government. Business cannot be relied upon to self-regulate because those who reject the practices of their competitors is almost always at a disadvantage. It’s a race to the bottom in which each enterprise excuses its behavior by saying it is not quite as bad as the other guy.
(I was struck at how this frames the issue of “the market” in terms that recognize Democrats as the “enforcers of the rules” while casting the Republican business elite as the out of control party boys who can’t be relied upon to police their own behavior. As I was listening I had a picture of a kid saying that they’d love to join in the binge drinking and drag racing fun, but their father is a tough cop and they’d better not. Strict father gives the kids a way to avoid peer pressure.)
He also discusses how much the laissez faire philosophy of deregulation and protections for cronies and contributors has led to loss of shareholder value and misallocation of capital to losing enterprises due to their dishonesty and lack of transparency. It’s bad for the economy and the current administration is exacerbating it by protecting the status quo to the detriment of the nation as a whole.
As an example, after the disclosure that the makers of Paxil had withheld from the public information that clearly showed that there was a high risk of suicide in teen-agers who used the drug, he quotes the WSJ editorial page as saying “the system is working exactly as it should.”
He discusses “values” in the context that only government can “enforce” business behavior that recognises our cultural values such as anti-discrimination or minimum wage. He says, “the marketplace alone can’t get us there.” “Democrats believe in the market and we understand the market, but it will not survive if we do not understand it’s flaws and government does not enforce the rules of integrity.”
With regard to the social security debate, he said that the Democrats are the ones who built the middle class, protected their investments and created the ownership society that already is America. The Republicans, contrary to the popular view, are “cloaking themselves in the language of the market, but speaking for the ossified status quo.”
This is an elegant way of framing our position. Democrats are the reformers — by being the enforcers. In this political climate those are powerful words. Fighting liberal reformers battling to enforce the rules that maximise the efficiency of the market and promote our values.
If you read one thing today, read this article by Robert Wright(if you haven’t already.)
There was a time, lo these many years ago (back in the 90’s) when most people understood that globalization was a huge transition with lots of unintended consequences we need to be aware of and deal with, but it was inevitable and also held out a huge promise of progress for freedom, liberty and deomcracy and all that gooey good stuff our Preznit loves to talk about. The thinking went that capitalism held the keys to liberation and that while we were embarking on a somewhat unknown track, we had faith that our economic and political systems would win out as long as we were engaged.
Then along came 9/11 and “changed everything.” The PNAC neocon crowd, who had always dissented from that argument, held sway with their belief that the US had to expand its influence through the use of hard power and force the gooey good stuff because otherwise it wouldn’t happen.
They did not understand that it’s our “idea” that is the compelling thing, not our awesome military and economic might, which exists not to spread freedom but to protect it. They have faith in their own ideology and their own power, but they have no faith in what this country stands for. Their reliance on things like torture bears that out. That is the fundamental error.
Along with Mark Schmitt, I’m not a big fan of Lakoff’s new book. As I’ve written many times, I think his analysis of the art and science of framing is right on the money, but I think his actual frames are just terrible. He’s an idea man, not a political strategist. I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. The mere fact that he frames the Democrats as “nurturant parents (mommies)” disqualifies him from political action. That frame is exactly what’s killing us. It may be sexism or it may just be the times in which we live, but we should drop it like a hot potato.
The Republicans have an economic framing model that’s very successful and we can learn from it. They sell an optimistic, simple philosophy of “if only the government would get out of the way you can be successful.” This means that if you aren’t successful it’s the government’s fault. (And Democrats believe in government so they are actively working to keep you down.) Their frame is always, entirely, the frame of self reliance and self interest. They preach it as a moral good no matter what the situation. This is a notion that has a very long history in American culture and it’s one that appeals to a very basic aspect of human nature. It has become the dominant strain in political discourse over the last thirty years.
However, they know that Americans are not that simple minded about their own personal self interest. Even if they sign on to the philosophy of self interest it doesn’t mean that they don’t understand that they have much to gain with a generous redistributional government. (Hence the “lucky ducky” strategy.) Americans like certain things the government provides. So, the Republicans hire guys like Frank Luntz and spend millions of dollars polling and focus grouping to find out how to market this “you’re on your own” philosophy to make it sound as if they will be guaranteed a better result if they do it the GOP way. They choose words and phrases that denigrate government, make Democrats appear to be corrupt and enslaved by “special” interests and make it sound as if people will be giving nothing up and gaining much by signing on to the Republican philosophy.
But, even with all that they have not been able to completely destroy the liberal consensus. Therefore, they are forced to do things like sell social security destruction on two tracks. They are simultaneously trying to “save” something that poeple obviously value while at the same time convincing people that they will benefit far more if they sign on to the privatization bandwagon. But we have recently found out that after all this time they can’t use the word “privatization” because people aren’t buying it. People know enough to know “privatization” means they might lose money.
This is very telling It says that while the Republicans have been able to move self interest to the front and center of political discourse, displacing the values of community and altruism as things people feel they ought to say when quizzed about such things. But they haven’t managed to make people believe that government is their personal enemy or that it is in their self interest to reject all redistribution of wealth so that they might have more “opportunity.” Self-interested people aren’t ideologues. They’ll take the best deal from wherever it comes.
Therefore, I would submit that our rhetorical frames should begin to speak to the fact that properly run government is a good deal. Social Security is a guaranteed check that is always on time and comes every single month no matter how long you live. That’s a good deal.
And I think that we have to acknowledge that the altruistic, moral case for government is (temporarily, hopefully) on the decline and we need to argue in a way that accomodates that. On a separate track we must enlist the liberal clergy and others to begin to build the progressive values arguments back up, just as the Republicans continue to build their case for laissez-faire. But in the meantime, we need to realize that we are in an era of marketing to people’s individual wants and desires and needs. This is how they view the world.
I don’t think we need to be dishonest, but I fear that we are going to be bulldozed over and over again, even if we win the battle for social security, if we try to hang our hats on the moral case for good government. Someday, perhaps, we can get there. But today I think that the singular success of the Republican era is persuading people that selfishness is a positive good. Little Aynnie Rand must be popping a Dexie and lighting a cig with satisfaction down in the third circle right now.
There Is No Crisis is putting together a fun and informative way to deal with the Preznit’s State of the Union Destroy Social Security speech. Throw a house party and tune into a conference call afterward in which someone will interpret the soaring gibberish into English and educate your party about the nightmarish future Republicans intend for you to have in your old age.
(You can even incorporate my favorite, the Dubya Drinking game, points corresponding to how many times he says freedom, liberty, ownership and “personal accounts.” But serve half shots or the party will be passed out before the conference call.)
“There Is No Crisis” is the response to Bush’s repeated assertions that he is trying to “save social security.” It’s a bold way of framing it and it puts the onus on President Inarticulate to explain a complicated policy issue. (Even when they write a good speech, he’s much more believable on the “you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” kind of Hollywood dialog than making a complicated case for a particular policy.) This is good politics. The other side is on the defensive.
The key to arguing this issue is to recognize their various arguments and make them explain them. When you do that, they begin to see the outlines of a basically dishonest scheme. Here are a few ideas about handling this:
“The system is going broke”
When you’re standing around the water cooler and somebody says that the system has to be fixed because it’s going broke, ask them to explain why the date that the trust fund “runs out” keeps going up, from 2029 to 2042 and maybe higher even though the baby boomer retirement ages have been known for 50 years now. When they sputter, as they will, adopt the world weary derisive tone usually reserved for war hawks and law and order types and say, “Yeah, whatever. It sounds like a scam to me There’s no crisis.”
“Private accounts give a better return on investment”
Ask them if they agree that every portfolio needs some part of their retirement savings that isn’t subject to being Enroned. And don’t they think that having at least a minimal defined benefit plan is what allows people to take on more risk with their 401K’s and IRA’s and other investments? A prudent investor knows that everybody needs a very conservative portion of their portfolio to fall back on if they have a bad break. Isn’t that really what social security is?
“The trust fund is a bunch of worthless IOU’s”
Do they realize that those “worthless “IOU’s” are government bonds? Those bonds are backed by the most reliable contract in the world “the full faith and credit of the Treasury of the United States of America.” If government bonds are worthless then social security is the least of our problems. In fact, we should probably start burying gold in the back yard and laying in the canned goods.
“The baby boomer retirees are going to outnumber the workers and that’s why the system is going broke”
Then how come Ronald Reagan signed the legislation back in 1983 that made all workers (and especially boomers in their top earning years) pay “extra” in order to pay for the baby boomer’s retirements? What happened to that plan?
Then there is the big question that come back at you. It’s not easy to explain, but you can do it if they’ll let you finish a sentence.
“Why do they want to do this now?”
A variety of reasons, but the most important is that this is the first time since its inception that the Republicans have had the institutional power to dismantle social security. They have been against it since the day the legislation was signed and have been building this case for privatization since at least the fifties. Now that they are in power, the modern Republican party is conducting a radical economic (and foreign policy) experiment based upon their belief in laissez faire capitalism and world military domination but they have not been honest with the American people about what they are doing. We are by nature a cautious people when it comes to radical change and they know it. So they are creating “problems” and “crises” that don’t exist (like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and social security going broke) in order to persuade people that that the old ways don’t work anymore and that “modern” solutions are needed.
Privatizing Social Security is a very bold step back to the future. There was once a time when Americans closing in on the end of their lives either worked until they dropped dead or lived their final years in grinding poverty if they had not been able to save enough money during their earning years. There are an infinite number of reasons why this might be so. It could happen to anyone. Social Security was a recognition that everybody needs something to fall back on in life if things don’t go well. Paying into it over the course of your earning years is a small price to pay for the peace of mind in knowing that even if your 401K or your IRA or your house doesn’t appreciate the way you hope, there will at least be something that will keep the wolves at bay. There is only one entity on the face of this earth that can make a guarantee like that— the government of the richest most powerful nation on earth. We can afford to guarantee that the elderly live their final years in a dignified, decent manner. We’ve managed to do that for the last seventy years and there’s no reason that we shouldn’t be able to continue. There is no crisis. Let’s move on to dealing with real problems.
If that doesn’t work, give them this article by George Will. Will makes the honest Republican argument:
The president says Social Security should be reformed because it is in “crisis.” That is an exaggeration. Democrats say it should not be reformed because there is no crisis. That is a non sequitur. Social Security should be reformed not because there is a crisis but because there is an opportunity.
[…]
Voluntary personal accounts will allow competing fund managers, rather than a government monopoly on income transfers from workers to retirees, to allocate a large pool of money. This will enhance the economic dynamism conducive to an open society. Personal accounts will respect individuals’ autonomy and competence and will narrow the wealth gap by facilitating the accumulation of wealth — bequeathable wealth — by people of modest incomes.
There you have it. If you want to trust the “competing fund managers” who backed Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers with every penny of your retirement instead of leaving a modest portion with the most reliable guarantor on earth, the United States of America, then you’ll love social security privatization. It’ll make your elderly years very exciting and unpredictable.
Click over to There is No Crisis and sign up for a house party. I swear it’s the only way to get through what is going to be the most unctuous and shockingly dishonest SOTU that’s ever been given. Peggy will crawl her way back up William Kristol’s keister and proclaim it a home run. Steve Forbes will probably be anchoring the CNN coverage in a Chicken Little costume. You are going to need normal people around you.
Oh, and click over to this cool Move-On ad, soon to be seen in wavering districts throughout the country.
