Reply #32: It's all in the wording. "partial dismantling" on the table now.

[madfloridian]

"Not long ago, Al From, the head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, had lunch with Marron and another PaineWebber official. The DLC, whose purpose is to realign the Democratic Party away from its traditional alliance with the AFL-CIO, is strongly leaning toward NCRP-style privatization. The November/December 1998 issue of The New Democrat, the DLC's bimonthly magazine, is filled with a series of pro-privatization stories under the heading "Less Than Secure: Rebuilding Social Security for the 21st Century"; it includes a piece by Senator Breaux outlining the commission's proposals. ""

http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/socialsecurity/key_issues/money_trail_and_wall_street/readarticle50.cfm

"In his State of the Union speech, President Clinton fired the first shot in the battle, proposing to use the projected budget surplus to bolster the existing Social Security system. He avoided support for the private accounts privatizers want but, in a nod to free-marketeers, proposed investing part of the system's reserve funds in stocks and bonds and suggested a separate system of government-aided private accounts over and above Social Security.

That the partial dismantling of the crown jewel of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal is even on the table is due, in large part, to a sophisticated effort by Wall Street and its conservative allies in both political parties. Yet, like Lackritz and Fink, the financial-services industry--not only Wall Street but banks and insurance companies--is trying to keep out of sight. Fearful of being accused of trying to gorge itself, vulturelike, on the carcass of Social Security, the money men are instead maneuvering quietly, behind the scenes, to guide the debate over privatization. "Everybody perceives that we have an enormous self-interest here," says Lackritz.

In reality, Wall Street's fingerprints are everywhere. Some firms, like State Street Boston, PaineWebber (along with the ubiquitous Pete Peterson of the Blackstone Group) and the SIA, are frankly backing privatization; others, like Merrill Lynch, Fidelity, American Express and ICI, are operating more quietly, financing academic studies and providing technical expertise to Congress and the White House. And most important, since 1995 Wall Street has helped to shape the debate by supporting a series of think-tank blueprints that have now been adopted as revealed truth by the GOP and many middle-of-the-road Democrats, while seductively tempting the White House."