The attack on Social Security

We've all known for some time that the conservatives, especially those inside the Bush administration, want to squash Social Security. To them it's a big bad "government program" (even though Bush, before the 2000 election, claimed it wasn't), and worse, a Democratic government program that has turned into one of the most popular programs the U.S. government has ever come up with.

Besides, it doesn't fulfill their goal, which is to make every American fend for him- or her-self, cradle to grave--except, of course, for those who inherit wealth or positions of privilege that lead to wealth.

The most visible attacks on Social Security lately have been the various drives for "privatization," which, when you peel away the obfuscation, is really just a way of making sure the program stops being universal, which means that it loses the support of all the people who are no longer served by it, and in the process pumps a bunch of money into various Wall Street brokerage houses as people who have never played the stock market are forced to do so.

The attack I didn't know about, until I read this article in the AARP Bulletin, is from the other side.  The scheme here is to reduce the effectiveness of your local SS office to the point that people get fed up with the system--to make it about as popular, say, as your average Motor Vehicles office. In this way, those who hate SS can peel away support for the program, so that voters will stop insisting that Social Security be saved.  By cutting staffing and resources, they create longer lines, longer waits for services, more confusion about programs, and generally make the experience as miserable as possible.  If you think this is not an intended result, you haven't been watching the conservatives closely enough.

To quote from the article:

"As the workload has been increasing, the number of SSA employees has been shrinking. The agency has lost 4,000 workers in the last two years alone, and staffing is at its lowest level in 33 years.

'We're not just treading water now, we're sinking,' says Rick Warsinskey, who represents the agency's managers and supervisors as president of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations.

SSA officials say the agency doesn't have the funds to add to its staff, or even to replace all the employees who leave. In the last 10 years, the agency's budget requests have been reduced first by the administration, which cut them to maintenance level, then by Congress, which cut them even further, 'to the tune of $1 billion,' Astrue says."

And

"The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., says his staff 'hears the phrases "completely outrageous" and "entirely unacceptable" repeatedly from North Dakotans frustrated by their experiences with local Social Security offices.' His committee recommended a Social Security appropriation of $430 million more than the president's budget request for the agency for 2008.

The final bill is expected to allocate only $100 million to $125 million more. That might allow the agency to maintain current staffing levels, but not increase them."

In other words, if you're concerned about the long-term health of the Social Security program, it might not be a bad idea to call or write your representatives in Washington and let them know they need to fund the program--not only to protect its long-term solvency as the Baby Boomers begin to tap it, but to make sure it has the resources to do its job, now and into the future.

Comments

[Richard Anderson]

The "AARP Bulletin"? You, too, huh....

Man, middle-age sure went by quickly.

-Richard

[Jeff Mariotte]

It's worth it, just for the motel discounts. The magazine's pretty good, too. And it's always good to keep up with the latest models of electric scooters...