One party may not survive the fight for Social Security reform
In a piece on Social Security reform, Jonathan Rauch engages in much analysis with which proponents of reform would take issue. But he's right about this:diablo 2 lod 1.11 cheat
Conservatives need to frame Social Security reform as a dollars-and-cents issue, but that is not really why they are excited. What they really hope to change is not the American economy but the American psyche.
Conservatives used to speak derisively of liberal social engineering. The attempt to create private Social Security accounts is, so to speak, conservative social counter-engineering. Government should help provide for unforeseeable contingencies: tsunamis, unemployment, open-heart surgery. But if there is one event in all of human life that is wholly foreseeable, it is the advent of old age. Why, then, shouldn't people save for their own retirement, instead of relying on welfare from the government -- which is what Social Security, as currently constituted, really is?
Tanner argues that people who own assets behave differently and see their place in society in a different light. Private accounts, he says, would encourage a culture of saving and personal responsibility; they would discourage political class warfare; they may, he argues, improve work habits, and even reduce crime and other social pathologies. Create private Social Security accounts, and millions of low-income Americans will be stockholders and bondholders. Republican political activists look at the way portfolio investors vote -- and salivate at the prospect of millions more of them.
The 2004 exit polls suggested, to many conservatives, that "moral values" won the election for Bush. It may seem odd, then, that his boldest post-election priority is not abortion or gay marriage or schools, but Social Security. The key to the paradox is that Social Security reform is not, at bottom, an economic issue with moral overtones. It is a moral issue with economic overtones.
The drive to reform Social Security is, in part, about shoring up the system's long-term fiscal health. But more importantly, it's about providing the common man with an opportunity to accumulate real wealth and thereby altering his relationship to the Government. diablo 2 lod 1.11 cheat
Democrats, who are the merchants of Government, know this, which is why they're terrified. If given the option of investing even part of your Social Security taxes in a private account, your self-sufficiency may threaten the Democrats and their dependence-inducing policies.diablo 2 lod 1.11 cheat
For Democrats, the fight isn't about Social Security reform per se. It's about their political survival. Of course, a fight of this nature is not without danger for Republicans. This is why Mr. Rauch can write:diablo 2 lod 1.11 cheat
The magnitude of the political risk is staggering. On Capitol Hill, many Republicans wonder if they are being led off a cliff. What does President Bush think he's doing?
What indeed? A president should never risk lightly the political health of his party. But what if ... What if he does it in the service of inspiring, history-changing ideas? What then?diablo 2 lod 1.11 cheat
Battle stations, please.diablo 2 lod 1.11 cheat