Don't cut the safety net

At a recent event designed to promote his Social Security privatization scheme, President Bush told the assembled crowd of supporters, "If you're 20 years old ... I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now." In fact, Election Day exit polls show that almost two-thirds of voters under the age of 30 don't believe that Social Security will be around when they retire. As a result, 55 percent of those under 30 call Social Security private accounts a "good idea" according to a recent Gallup poll.

With statements like the President's coming from right-wing pundits far and wide, it's not so surprising that our generation, the group most opposed to Bush's re-election, is most supportive of the first item on his second-term agenda. However, as the past four years have taught us well, just because Republicans say something over and over again doesn't mean it's true.

In fact, there is no Social Security crisis. While conservatives keep pointing out that in 2018 the system will start paying out more than it takes in, this is exactly why there is a Social Security trust fund which will keep paying out full benefits until 2042, and even then will be able to pay 73 percent of benefits. By contrast, Medicare faces its reckoning day in 2019. If there's a crisis, it's not in Social Security.

There is some truth to the administration's claims that there is a cost to doing nothing, but that doesn't mean that acting rashly can't make things worse, which is exactly what privatization would do. Social Security payments to retirees are funded by workers paying into the system now. Therefore, diverting Social Security revenue into private savings accounts creates a gap between revenue and payments that is estimated at $1-2 trillion for the next 10 years alone, with the gap widening after that. The administration's only plan to pay for this gap is to add to an already-oversized federal debt. For this reason, the Bush plan to privatize Social Security would worsen the fiscal situation it aims to improve.

Moreover, there are alternatives. Workers currently only pay Social Security taxes on the first $90,000 they earn. That cap could be raised, bringing more revenue into the system without raising the tax rate. Also, people our age will likely live much longer than did generations before us, so the retirement age for our generation can be pushed back another year or two. Either of these proposals would extend Social Security's solvency even further.

So if there's no immediate crisis, if privatization will only make things worse and if there are alternative reform plans, why is Bush pursuing privatization? A leaked memo from Karl Rove's deputy holds the key. He wrote, "For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win." The real reason Republicans are seeking to privatize social security is not to save it from a fictional crisis; it is to end it, as free-market conservatives have long sought to do.

The question now facing Congress is not then how best to save Social Security; it is about whether we should have such a program at all. Privatization would turn Social Security into a retirement plan, and while that's the way that many of us who did not live through the Great Depression think about it, that's never what it was intended to be.

We already have individual savings programs -- 401(k)s, IRAs and the like. Social Security, however, is the most effective anti-poverty program ever implemented in U.S. history. Social Security keeps old age from meaning poverty for millions of Americans, and under any privatization plan it will cease serving this essential function as a social safety net, for no private plan can help workers who invest poorly or who suffer through another Enron-esque debacle.

Fundamentally, this debate asks if America is a true community or just a collection of individuals born in proximity to one another. Put another way, do we love our neighbors, or do we leave our neighbors to fend for themselves? Privatization denies the reality of an American community of conscience, telling us that we're all on our own.

I'm not buying it. Responsibility is a two-way street; just as individuals are responsible for contributing to our community, that community must take some responsibility for protecting its members. So yes, we must save Social Security -- not from a fictional crisis, but rather from privatization itself.

Kevin Collins is a junior Political Science major from Milwaukee. ...And Justice For All appears on Tuesdays.

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