The Case Against Privatizing Social Security
For the New Deal’s 90th birthday, let’s deliver a cake, not a hand grenade.
By Henry Scott Wallace, June Hopkins, Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall, Harold M. Ickes and James Roosevelt Jr.
TODAY 5:00 AM
The New Deal was born exactly 90 years ago, on FDR’s Inauguration Day, March 4, 1933. In his inaugural speech (the one famous for saying Americans had “nothing to fear but fear itself”), he acknowledged the many crises facing the country and observed, “This Nation is asking for action, and action now.”
Normally, a 90th birthday is cause for celebration. But for Mike Pence, it’s apparently an occasion for death threats. The former vice president (and putative 2024 candidate for president) has doubled down on his proposal to replace the New Deal with what he calls a “better deal.” The centerpiece of his plan would dismantle the centerpiece of the New Deal—Social Security—and let seniors play the stock market instead.
This notion of “privatizing” Social Security is so beloved by the far right that the Koch brothers invented a phony grassroots (“astroturf”) organization called “60 Plus” to lobby for it. It would be a gold mine for money managers and the finance industry. It’s endorsed by the Republican Study Committee, composed of more than 150 congressional Republicans. The same group has also endorsed raising the retirement age by three years, to 70—which would basically reduce Social Security benefits by 23 percent for retirees across the board, and would increase the national debt by tens of trillions of dollars.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/privatize-social-security-new-deal/
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