Last month the independent financial and political journalist and activist, Eric Laursen, spoke at the Tucson Book Festival about his work, The People’s Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan. I attended, and afterwards bought the book, an 800 page epic history and exposé, which describes the battle to dismantle the Social Security Program (SSP) from 1981 all the way up to the Obama Administration. The book was published in 2012.
His talk at the Book Festival was recorded by C-Span and you may watch it here. In the lecture, Laursen argued that we are witnessing a manufactured crisis with regard to Social Security. There is no actual existential threat to the Program. Beneath the current edition of the theatrical set of the Social Security drama is the very real and present crisis of our nation’s weak financial system. There is also a political crisis as to whether the "governing class" wants to support Social Security anymore, and whether there is enough political power in popular support to defend it.
Laursen illustrated one aspect of the political crisis by differentiating between Progressive and Beltway-Very Serious People (VSP) ideas for dealing with future funding for the SSP. Progressive ideas include having Congress raise the Cap or even eliminating the Cap, as Bernie Sanders has suggested. Another Progressive option is to raise the Estate Tax, or another, raise the payroll tax very incrementally.
In contrast, Laursen called the ideas of the VSP a three headed monster. The heads are as follows: Raise the retirement age; set up Means Testing; utilize Chained-CPI. This third head is, as we all now know, the current favored choice of the Obama Administration. It is a cut. This third head is stepping right on the third rail, and should consequently get zapped, as will all of its supporters come election time. All three of these heads will exempt the wealthy while placing the burden on those least able to take it. These are fundamentally unfair ideas, all of which need to be defeated.
How would this unfairness manifest if the cuts go through? Laursen described how important the SSP is to Americans. He said 66% of Americans now depend on Social Security for survival with average monthly payments of $1300.00. The program keeps 20 million Americans out of poverty. As of 2012 there are already 46.2 million Americans in poverty, a number of people presently far too high. If anything, the SSP should be expanded. That is what leadership interested in fairness would seek to do.
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