Attacks on Social Security, Medicare borrow a strategy from Lenin
About the last thing you'd ever expect is for conservatives to draw procedural lessons from the founder of the Soviet state. So it's fascinating to ponder the persistence of an attack on Social Security that was explicitly billed as a "Leninist" strategy three decades ago by analysts at the Heritage Foundation and is still in use today.
This is the notion, which is part of pretty much every proposal today to "fix" Social Security and Medicare, that benefits for the retired and near-retired should be guaranteed, while those for everyone else must be cut.
The usual rationale given for distinguishing among generations is that it's unfair to renege on a promise people have counted on for their entire working lives. But the real rationale is political. If you understand that, you might see almost all current proposals aimed at reducing the costs of Social Security and Medicare whether they involve cutting benefits for most people across the board, raising eligibility ages, or means-testing the programs to cut or deny benefits to wealthier retirees in a new light.
Let's go back to the original strategy brief by Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis. Their piece, "Achieving a 'Leninist' Strategy," appeared in the Cato Institute's Cato Journal for fall 1983. Anguished over President Reagan's failure to exploit Social Security's 1982 fiscal crisis to privatize the program, they concluded that the reason was the program's strong support among the powerful voting bloc of seniors.
More at: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120113,0,442443.column
MFrohike
(1,980 posts)Michael Lind pointed out that modern conservatism is really just a counter-communist grouping in "Up from Conservatism" in 1996. Nice to see that it's getting noticed.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I think the age for eligibility for those programs should be lowered in order to encourage people in their 50s to take early retirement and open up jobs for young people. We have a shortage of jobs, not a shortage of qualified workers.
As one who relies on Social Security and Medicare and who looks at friends in their 50s who are really suffering and don't have those benefits to rely on, I am horrified that anyone would discuss cutting those programs in any way.
What is the person who spent all his 401(K) savings just to put food in his mouth and roof over his head during his 50s to do if the eligibility age for Social Security is raised to 70? Starve before he reaches 65?
It's not as if employers are looking for older workers. It's not as if employers want to teach older workers new skills.
These right-wingers need to get their heads out of the clouds and their bodies out of the ivory tower think tanks they live in.
eridani
(51,907 posts)That and youth unemployment is going to result in Social Security being the only reirement security many will ever have.
Glen Bos
(16 posts)LOL!