The Jesus Take - Bush's Assault on Social Security
When the Social Security became law in August of
1935, the United States was just emerging from the Great Depression and made a
commitment to care for all of its citizens. Fast forward almost 100 years later
and our self professed the-last-shall-be-first, born-again President says -
screw that... (praise god)
Yep, our favorite flip-floppin' President - who
scoffed at the very suggestion that he had any plans to privatize social
security at least right up until his minions stole the 2004 election that is. At
one of the debates, when for a second or two they weren't talkin' terror George
went so far as to say, with his famously stupid hand-in-the-cookie-jar grin, "My
opponent is just trying to scare the American public," about his plans to
privatize Social Security. The day after the election of course, about 4 hours
after John "help is on the way" Kerry conceded (this despite the fact that huge
problems with the election were already beginning to emerge - especially in
Ohio) El Presidente announced he had himself a mandate and he was going to use
up some of that there political capital to privatize (destroy) Social Security.
Go figure.
So what's wrong with
privatizing Social Security, won't some people make out better? Isn't it good to
have the benefit fully portable? Yes, and in theory. But there's a problem, you
see it's the
social
part of Social Security (re: socialist - to you god fearing hate-filled trash).
You see when it was signed into law, it wasn't all about the me, me, me (praise
god and my personal relationship with his only son), if was about the we, we, we
or making sure we provided some level of care for all of our citizens. And
there's the rub.
Because in Bush's
bullshit ownership society (ie: those who own will do well, those who don't own,
or don't own enough will get screwed), the working poor will never, ever - earn
enough - to save enough - to ever retire. You see in Bush's Christian theocracy
we will no longer care for those who can not care for themselves (yep you
guessed it - palms skyward, praise
god).
So yes there are some people that
will do quite well. You can bet they will have well capitalized, well
diversified funds that will be guaranteed to provide them a decent retirement no
matter what the market or the economy does. And they will be held up as
examples of the wisdom of taking down the system. But off to the side, well out
of sight will be the majority. In the middle you will have some who do much
better (luck of the Irish - so to speak), a few more who do a little better -
depending on how the economy looks when they retire and what steps they may or
may not have taken to reduce their risk as they got older. And then you'll have
some in the middle who do a little worse, and some who lose a
bunch.
But then you have the bottom,
with no floor, and millions of people with insufficient earnings to ever
reasonably save enough for anything, let alone retirement. It is these people
the very people Social Security originally sought to help, who will be left out
in the cold. Sure some people will make more if they're market savvy or they
have enough money to cover their mistakes, and they'll do even a little better
because they don't have to share with the
have-not-enough's.
I know that a lot of
Bush-like Christians hate to share, and don't think that ought to have to share,
but give me a break. I won't even get into the arguments about what Jesus said
about ministering to (caring for) the poor because, I mean what's the point.
Most of them don't really mean it anyway. It's just a security blanket, or
socialization tool, or another place to market or network (so much for the claim
that it's a relationship not a religion). But just look at how people actually
make money. Yeah sure they have to work hard and sacrifice, hey them's the
breaks, but they're doing it in an environment that makes it easier for them to
succeed.
By that I mean that we, all of
us, invest in our reasonably well educated work force, the transportation
infrastructure, the public works (gas, water, electricity, etc), public safety
and on and on. We pay for that and that benefits businesses and corporations
disproportionately. If they think otherwise let them set up shop where they
don't have any of the above and see how much they make having to start from
scratch. It's a whole different ball game. So rather than welfare, you can call
it a little measure of payback. Hey fair's fair
right?
Well not in Bush's world. Even
though he pretends to be Christian, he's really into Darwinism - Social
Darwinism that is. The survival of the fittest (or the richest - in this case).
The strongest shall survive and thrive and those who fall short of the glory...
well fuck them. Yep one more time with heart - Praise God, Praise you Jesus,
Thank you Jesus...