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Naming the Names Behind the Grab for Social Security

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Naming the Names Behind the Grab for Social Security 05-04 Lowdown_finaltest.qxd 3/18/05 5:33 PM Page 1 SENATE BLOCKS WAGE HIKE The Time for another Gooberhead Award pre- sented periodically to those in the news who have their tongues going 100 miles an hour...but forgot to put their brains in gear. Edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer Vol. 7 No. 4 April 2005 Today, I’ve got a whole gaggle of Goobers—all U.S. senators! These are the 49 Solons who recently voted to kill an increase in They want to fix it—just like you fix a dog America’s minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1996. That comes out to about $10,500 a year for full-time Naming the names behind work! Try making ends meet on that, as millions of Americans now have to do. It’s a moral outrage that in the richest country in the the grab for Social Security history of the world, people working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, receive hen George W says he’s the reins of the party’s national leadership with Barry poverty paychecks. This is going to “fix” our Social Goldwater’s 1964 run. Nothing that Bush is saying today why Democratic senators is new. Just as George is now doing, Goldwater painted offered an increase to Security system, I feel like a dog that’s just been told, a picture of a collapsing system 40 years ago, declaring $7.25 an hour. That’s about that “it is not actuarially sound” and contending that he $15,000 a year—hardly the “We’re taking you to the merely wanted “to make Social Life of Reilly, but better. vet to get Security solvent, to improve it.” “No,” shouted the 49 sen- you fixed.” Likewise, Ronnie Reagan called for ators, all Republicans. Whether it’s to dogs or to We the the same sort of privatization Gooberhead Mike Enzi got People,W George’s message is the approach now touted by Bush. “Can’t all ideological about it: same: This radical surgery is needed for we introduce voluntary features that “Wages do not cause sales,” would permit a citizen to do better on he intoned. “Sales are your own good. If, however, you suspect that something besides your welfare is really motivat- his own?” the Gipper asked. needed to provide wages. While politicians from Goldwater Wages do not cause revenue. ing him…you’re exactly right. to George have portrayed their Revenue drives wages.” Extremist, right-wing ideology and assault on the program in terms of Hey Mike, raise wages of the insatiable corporate grab for money “saving” it with a curative dose of working families and—and are the two forces behind Bush’s push not privatization, it’s really the very exis- guess what—sales go up in merely to neuter this enormously popular and effective tence of Social Security that sticks in local businesses. And cor- retirement program...but ultimately to kill it. As report- their craw. (In ’64, in a moment of porate revenues have been ed in last month’s Lowdown, step one is to portray candor about his real intentions, going up for years—so why Social Security as fatally flawed. The Goldwater said, “Perhaps Social haven’t wages? promised benefits are a “hoax,” the taxes Security should be abolished.”) These Goobers even paid into the trust fund are “wasted” Behind this campaign is the right- tried to use the minimum- rather than invested for maximum return, wing’s antigovernment dogma, wage bill to give more tax and “the so-called reserve fund…is no which has trumped the obvious need breaks to their corporate reserve at all.” to guarantee people a basic level of backers, cut the over-time Interestingly, these are quotes not from today’s retirement security. pay protections of workers, alarmist Bushites but from the lips of Alf Landon and These are laissez-faire extremists and ban states from raising the pages of his party’s platform when he who loathe the notion of anything the minimum wage for was the Republican candidate for presi- “public,” who cringe at the ethic of restaurant workers. dent way back in 1936! Note that the the “Common Good,” and who To be fair, though, the first Social Security check was not mailed despise any government program that senators aren’t entirely until 1937, so the ideologues and big- supports anything other than military against wage increases. money interests were predicting doom and and corporate interests. For them, They’ve raised their own pay gloom and trying to undermine the program America is not about a people unit- every year for the last five even before it started. ing to share society’s burdens and years—a total of $28,500. Indeed, dismantling Social Security to stretch the possibilities of indi- has been a central tenet of vidual achievement, but about peo- THE GREED OF the right wing for nearly ple watching out for themselves TELECOM GIANTS 70 years, and it’s been and being solely responsible for In case you have any an increasingly serious their own gains, unfettered by any doubt that corporations will goal of GOP presidential concern for the larger society. A politics since the hard- leading proselytizer for this self- —continued p. 2 core right made its grab for centered ethic of “everyone on 05-04 Lowdown_finaltest.qxd 3/18/05 5:33 PM Page 2 —continued from p. 1 April 2005 The Hightower Lowdown 2 always protect their private- your own” is Grover Norquist, a long- ment). In short, their goal is to can- of Social Security as a government profit interests at the time Washington lobbyist, bagman, cel the basic social contract struck program that would better be put in expense of the public inter- and strategist for the far right. He between ordinary workaday folks private hands, making individuals est, consider the stealth lob- says bluntly that he seeks to shrink and rapacious corporate power in responsible for their own retirement. bying campaign that giant government “to the size where I can FDR’s day and to return us to that Fifteen years later, Bush prac- phone companies and cable drag it into the bathroom and drown earlier, glorious age of the Robber ticed his privatization chops while providers are waging in it in the bathtub.” Barons, when citizens didn’t have a running for a West Texas congres- state legislatures. Because Social Security actually bunch of sissy laws, meddlesome sional seat, telling an audience at Local governments in works and is far more efficient than programs, and a safety net to the Midland Country Club that the cities from San Francisco to private pension annuities, it is espe- empower and strengthen them. program “will be bust in 10 years Philadelphia and in small cially galling to Norquist and his unless there are some changes.” towns from Spanish Fork, allies. Living in an ideological fanta- Enter George W Sound familiar? His “ideal solution” Utah, to Kurtztown, syland, they see the New Deal as All of this frothing at the mouth back in this 1978 race will also Pennsylvania, have launched the Great Evil that transformed by the right-ring fringe would merely sound familiar. He said that people programs to guarantee uni- Americans from mythic rugged indi- be silly—except that the fringe has should be “given the chance to versal high-speed internet vidualists to weakling drones now moved into Bush’s White invest the [Social Security] money access to their people and dependent on the federal govern- House and Tom DeLay’s Congress the way they feel.” small businesses. “We didn’t ment. Starting with Social Security, and is turning silly into policy. Jump ahead another 20 years to want to be a second-class these sprites of the right intend to George himself has long been a 1997, when George was governor of city,” says an official in make us Americans better people part of this journey from the wilder- Texas and prepping to run for presi- Spanish Fork. by freeing us from any traces of ness. He’s currently squawking like dent. For help in framing his mes- Good for them—enterpris- such dependency. a rooster choking on a peach pit sage on Social Security, he brought ing public leadership has “Social Security,” exclaims a top about the urgency of dealing with a in Jose Piñera, the architect of always helped America executive of the privatization-boost- looming “crisis” in Social Security, Chile’s ill-fated conversion to pri- advance. But now Verizon, ing think tank the Cato Institute, “is as though this issue suddenly has vate-market retirement, and Ed SBC, Comcast, and Bell the lynchpin of the welfare state.” appeared on his radar. But he’s been Crane, head of the Cato Institute South have unleashed their Government, such dogmatists con- nurturing privatization as a policy goal and a determined crusader for top- lobbyists to strong-arm state tend, has no business worrying from his days as a prep school brat. pling Social Security. They did not legislators all across the about things like people’s retire- In 1963, while a senior at Andover, have to do much selling to Boy country to make it illegal for ment—let the marketplace sort that he got a copy of Goldwater’s cam- George, who not only embraced local governments to provide out. If they can drive a spear paign manifesto, “Conscience of a their dogma but declared, “I do this essential service.
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