This is a crosspost from
AFL-CIO Now.
What's this? A modicum of economic truth from a Bush administration official?
Seems that yesterday, brand-new Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gave his first public speech since his appointment to the Bush cabinet. Speaking at the Columbia Business School, Paulson admitted many of America's workers aren't benefiting from the economic heyday Bush & Co. keep saying is all around us. Said Paulson:
Amid this country's strong economic expansion, many Americans simply aren't feeling the benefits. Many aren't seeing significant increases in their take-home pay. Their increases in wages are being eaten up by high energy prices and rising health care costs, among others.
As The Washington Post put it, Paulson's remarks were
a somewhat unusual concession from an administration that has spoken only glowingly of recent economic gains and has generally joined with Republicans in Congress in dismissing Democratic concerns about growing economic equality in the United States as "class warfare."
Indeed. We've highlighted here how despite Bush's claims, the economy is still not generating enough jobs to keep up with the increase in the total population.
At AFL-CIO Now we've noted how long-term trends--including an increase in the percentage of working poor and the decline of middle-class neighborhoods--indicate the Bush economy is on a downward spiral.
We've shared how Bush administration officials--such as the Ed Lazear, chief of the Council of Economic Advisers--have obfuscated or downright lied when it comes to discussing issues such as wage growth.
And new economic data--mostly bad--keeps coming in. Like the fact that wage stagnation is now hitting people with bachelor's degrees for the first time in 30 years, with earnings for workers who hold four-year degrees falling 5.2 percent from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation. And recent data showing economic growth slowed to 2.5 percent in the second quarter of 2006, down from 5.6 percent in the previous quarter, while housing growth sags across the nation.
But finally, a Bush administration official comes out and hints that we might be right.
Maybe it's because he's the new guy in the office.
Or maybe it's because Paulson, the former head of Goldman Sachs and clearly no slouch when it comes to strategic thinking, has another motive. Paulson also noted in his speech that he looks forward to working with Democrats on "revamping" Social Security.
As in taking away from America's workers the nation's most successful, guaranteed safety net, one that keeps retirees out of poverty. As in throwing up for a stock market gamble the funds that workers count on to see them through retirement.
Between 1960 and 2004, Social Security helped cut the poverty rate among seniors by more than two-thirds, from 35 percent to 10 percent. But if the Bush administration gets away with its long-held goal of privatizing Social Security, workers' retirement funds would be invested by private corporations seeking to maximize their profits at workers' expense, while bad investments and an uncertain stock market rip retirement security out from under most workers.
Paulson's remarks on Social Security are in line with recent Republican comments, including House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who in an interview with The Washington Times this week promised to privatize Social Security.
So, if Paulson admits working people really aren't doing so well in this economy, something needs to be done, right? So why not privatize Social Security?
In this Bush administration, even the truth hurts working people.
