Here we go again. Yet another stage-managed "crisis" has arisen requiring the heroic intervention of George W. Bush, the action-figure president. This time, it's Social Security, the most successful government program in U.S. history, that has been singled out for the now-familiar Bush treatment. According to The Washington Post, Bush hopes to get his way "by essentially replicating the formula he used to reshape foreign policy in the first [term]. This includes creating a small, loyal and trustworthy team to press for broad changes largely dictated by the White House." In short, a team of ideologues and yes-men. First comes a propaganda barrage, a rhetorical shock-and-awe campaign to convince the American public of something that's manifestly untrue: that Social Security faces a funding crisis threatening its very existence.
In his weekly radio address, Bush argued that "while benefits for today's seniors are secure, the system is headed towards bankruptcy down the road. If we do not act soon, Social Security will not be there for our children and grandchildren."
Bankruptcy, the man said. Soon, he added.
By now, anybody who believes anything this president says about money shouldn't be allowed a bank account without an adult co-signer. The administration has a matchless track record of budgetary flimflams. Remember when White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was forced to walk the plank in 2002 for saying the Iraq war would cost $200 billion? Remember the economist at Health and Human Services threatened with firing if he revealed that actual cost estimates for Bush's Medicare drug benefit were $100 billion higher than the White House told Congress?
Well, the Social Security "crisis" is another one of those. Except that, unlike the federal budget, which is pretty abstract to most people, Social Security is something the vast majority have literally bet their lives on. Surely even Bush wouldn't mislead them about that?
Here's what the president told a joint session of Congress back on Feb. 27, 2001, when he was lobbying for the first round of "Save the Millionaires" tax cuts: "To make sure the retirement savings of America's seniors are not diverted to any other program, my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security and Social Security alone."
Acolytes are now fanning out from all the tycoon-funded GOP "think tanks" in Washington amplifying Bush's scare talk: Social Security, they say, is a "pay as you go" system where today's workers fund today's retirees through payroll taxes. The insurmountable problem is supposed to be that an aging population is running short of workers to carry the load.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S. C., recently parroted the theme to CNN's Lou Dobbs. "Social Security is going bankrupt," he said. "It's coming apart at the seams. When I was born in 1955, there were 16 workers for every retiree. In about 15 years, there will be two workers for every retiree. Between 2011 and 2030, there will be a 65 percent increase in retirees and 8 percent increase in the work force. We're short of money to pay the benefits."
But Social Security quit being a "pay as you go" program in 1983, when the Reagan administration, heeding a commission headed by current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, sharply raised payroll taxes in anticipation of impending demographic changes. Fact is, the Baby Boomers, a. k. a. the fabled "Woodstock generation," have already funded their own retirement. The hay is in the barn.
Indeed, the Social Security surplus continues to accumulate and will for another decade. According to a report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Social Security will be selffunding at least until 2052, when projected benefits would begin to exceed revenue by a mere 19 percent--more an easily managed actuarial problem than a crisis.
A privately run insurance company with the same profile would be considered flush with assets.
So what's the problem? Remember in 2001 when Bush argued that Clintonera budget surpluses belonged "to the American taxpayers--not to the government--and it should be returned to the people in the form of a tax cut"? He was wrong on both counts, economist Allen W. Smith writes in his pungent book," The Looting of Social Security": "The money did not belong to the government or the general public. It belonged to the Social Security trust fund and to the hard-working Americans whose payroll tax contributions created the Social Security surplus." But now, see, GOP thinkers argue that the surplus is purely theoretical, an "accounting trick," some say; government IOUs that needn't be paid. If so, then salaried workers have been the pigeons in a gigantic money-laundering scam since 1983, remitting payroll taxes that the Bush administration has diverted to fund rebates to his wealthiest supporters. Understand, too, that his proposed "reforms" begin with sheer make-believe.
Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient of the National Magazine Award.