Why are the Republicans so against giving the people back their own money? Sure, Bush and his party talk a good talk, but when the rubber hits the road, they'll do anything to avoid living up to their end of the bargain.
And Social Security is the main example. More after the jump...
This is an idea for framing part of the Social Security debate--the part that says Social Security will run into severe trouble after 2018.
Bush and his GOP supporters want to run around saying we can't afford Social Security. They want to say the money to keep it going as it is just isn't there. They're doing this so that they can try to claim the system's broken, because as we all know, it's not smart to try to fix what isn't broken.
Here's a basic problem with what they're doing, put in a way that should reach even his most ardent supporters:
For the last two decades, we've all been paying extra money into the system. Every worker in America has been paying extra into what amounts to a savings account. And lawmakers (especially over the last four years) have been borrowing from that savings account.
The extra money paid into Social Security belongs to you and me. By law, it has to be paid back to Social Security recipients as we retire. And you'd think that a party and a President who wanted to let the people "keep their own money" would be doing everything possible to pay the money back. It's ours, right?
What are they doing instead?
They're talking about changing the law so they don't have to. They want to reduce benefits. They want to declare all that extra money you and I have been paying into the system is just gone.
I see this as an issue that's easy to frame in a basic "right's of the individual" theme. The Social Security trust fund is ours, by law. The GOP's been spending like drunken sailors, and instead of doing the right thing and preparing to pay the money back to us, are doing everything they can to screw us out of our hard-earned retirement savings.
Any thoughts?