More people need to be pondering the questions Joe Conason asks:
Among the mysteries of modern politics in America is why so many of our leading pundits and politicians persistently seek to undermine Social Security, that enduring and successful emblem of active government. In the current atmosphere of budgetary panic, self-proclaimed "centrists" are joining with ideologues of the right in yet another campaign against the program — and yet again they are misinforming the public about its purposes, costs and prospects.
Among the puzzling aspects of the crusade against Social Security is the zeal that animates its enemies, as if the present and future recipients of those monthly checks were somehow fattening themselves at the expense of future generations. Whatever drives these well-fed but poorly informed commentators, it isn't the facts.
He presents those facts: the benefits are very modest, averaging $1,170 a month, or about $14,000 a year (among the least generous retirement programs among all the developed nations); Social Security as is will be solvent until 2037, and the measures required to extend solvency beyond that are minor. As Conason says, there is no reason to panic, and "certainly no reason to consider wholesale changes in benefits."
Well, there is a reason, but only if your real aim is to destroy the system and replace it with something less useful but more profitable. Wall Street and its servants on Capitol Hill have lusted after Social Security's revenues for many years. And they regard the current uproar over the budget as a fresh opportunity to get their hands on a trillion-dollar bonanza. Given their record in recent years, it is all too easy to imagine how badly that would work out for everybody — except them, of course.
Yep.