Social Security’s Silent Majority

http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/02/10/social-securitys-silent-majority-35290/ - Tarsi Dunlop, via New Deal 2.0


Media coverage reflects what sells, and the political arena is no exception. Conflict and hypocrisy reign supreme, while the realities of policy are often left to fend for themselves. Social Security is a poignant example of such casualties. It is often the victim of misinformation and political agendas, which are designed to obscure the fact that a majority of Americans support the program. Most recently, Social Security was hijacked by the conversation about the national debt, yet another attempt by conservatives to reframe the narrative and detract from the facts. Consequently, the program’s fundamentals were once again lost to media spin, which sees no profitable advantage in telling a non-partisan story. The media’s reluctance to move beyond Republican sound bites is a fundamental disservice to Americans across the country. How else are they supposed to get the full story?

The facts alone are telling, but no one talks about them. Social Security provides over 50% of income for two out of every three seniors, and without it most elderly Americans would live in poverty. At the end of 2009, $672 billion dollars was going to 52 million Americans; one in six people receive Social Security benefits. The program is the most effective and efficient in our history; less than 2% goes to administrative overhead and the other 98 plus percent goes right back to beneficiaries. After September 11th, it took just three days for benefits to be provided to families who were beneficiaries and lost a loved one in the tragedy. We recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, but a large percentage of Americans celebrate it every month.

The irony in all the hype about the dangers of the national debt is that all age groups support Social Security, from the Millennial generation to retirees, and only 2% believe it is the primary contributor to the national debt.

Those in the conservative party who argue that this program is one of the main contributors to the debt are motivated by a narrow and self-serving agenda. In a unified voice, they are advocating the destruction of millions of lives that are already precariously balanced on the edge of poverty. Maybe they’re concerned that if average Americans really connected the dots, their argument for limited government would become the boat that sprang a thousand leaks. It is time to talk about the real issues contributing to the national debt, putting aside the larger discussion about the effects of the deficit in the long-term, because debates should deal in facts. The burden of any solutions should not fall on the shoulders of citizens who did not contribute to the reasons for rising debt: market failure and the deterioration of the housing market. One can only marvel at the hypocrisy in the GOP argument as they continue to push through tax breaks that run counter to their fiscal responsibility arguments, while simultaneously wondering why progressives have not figured out a more effective way to exploit this discrepancy between policy and rhetoric.

many seniors lost a great deal of money in the economic collapse.

And the fact that home prices have fallen, and the fact that dishonorable companies like BP and the Natural Oil companies are slamming the elderly person's health - it really makes it that much more important for Social Security payments continue to arrive on time.

Many members of the Democratic Party are singing from the same hymnal.

Both parties have used the surplus that Social Security ran for many years to finance either more spending or lower taxes, and that well is running dry. Last year, we started to see again (as we have in past recessions) the situation where more money went out than came in. Of course, those prior times were short-lived recessions, the current one promises to last a lot longer in its effects.

Add to that the fact that 2011 is when the first baby boomers are able to retire with full benefits, and you see how big the problem is starting to become. As the boom lasted from 1946 to 1964 by most demographers' reckoning, we've got another seventeen years of waves of people looking to get something back for all the years they've paid in. It must be enough to keep an actuary awake every night.

All the talk in the world is not going to make this reality go away, only by either raising taxes, lowering future benefits, or some combination of both are we going to be able to deal with this situation. Some months ago, I put forth some suggestions, I would appreciate any comments you have to make on them individually:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9021996&mesg_id=9029588

Once upon a time, elected Democrats would have met any attempt to cut Social Security not with a mealy-mouthed attempt to dispute a false GOP talking point (i.e., "Social security is driving the national debt"), but instead would mount a full-throated, impassioned frontal assault on the moral bankruptcy of what the Republicans were trying to do, in the process reminding all Americans that providing for the poor and needy among us is a non-negotiable moral absolute in any civilized nation. But very few are willing to do that these days, save perhaps Benrnie Sanders. It is virtually impossible to even lay credible claim to the moral high ground any longer when we have a Democratic President who, barely a month after extending fiscally irresponsible tax cuts yet again (particularly for the wealthiest), can turn around a month later and propose drastic cuts to a program such as LIHEAP.

We can thank the DLC, starting during the Clinton Administration, for convincing elected Democrats to abandon the party's long-standing tradition of standing with the poor and working- and middle-classes and instead to move the party "towards the center" in pursuit of short-term gains at the ballot box. But that was truly a Faustian bargain if ever there was one. That shift "towards the center" may indeed have helped Democrats during the election cycle following that first shift, but that electoral gain came at a horrendous price to the party's ability to stand on moral principle, and has set the party up for continued rightward drift following each and every electoral setback.

One thing I have to credit the Republicans with is the fact that no matter how toxic or wrong-headed the conservative agenda might be, or might even be demonstrate to be in real time, Republicans remain dogged in their pursuit of their agenda. They do so whether or not they win in any particular election cycle; sure, if they lose one, they'll pay lip service in the immediate aftermath about having "heard voters' voices" (remember how, after the 2006 midterms, they announced they were through with all that culture war stuff?), but they go right back to their agenda once the post-election coverage stops. This dogged persistence is part of what enables them to be somewhat successful politically even when they lack majorities in either chamber and the other party holds the presidency.

If Democrats do not soon recover a coherent, long-term political strategy that they are willing to pursue even especially when the political wind is not at their backs, then they will continue to morph into little more than a slightly less extreme version of the Republican Party, the only real moderating issue being the relative lack of religious extremists among Democrats.

Except for Bernie, Jan Schakowsky and a few others, of course.

Social security is sound so the Republicans went after its dedicated funding mechanism to make it unsound. Now they will claim that social security is in the red.

If Obama had refused to go along with cutting FICA I might still believe in him.

Like you say, when are Democrats, including Obama, going to say that social security has a dedicated funding mechanism so it does not contribute to the debt? This clearly indicates that Obama and the Democratic Party has abandoned the moral high ground. Since when does a politician voluntarily abandon a huge populist advantage? This does not compute.

I think we need to find out how President Obama would respond to an Egyptian style protest in his front (and back) yard.

Will he call out the military like Herbert Hoover? Will he tell the cops not to beat up protesters? Will he listen?

Americans need to find out.

We need an Egyptian style protest for economic justice.