Social Security assaulted

The report by the Social Security Commission (BDN, July 20), stating that the system can only be preserved by reducing benefits, raising taxes or borrowing from the government, is simply wrong. Other strategies would fix a system that is not in crisis.

The myth of a Social Security crisis is a scare tactic to fool Americans into agreeing to radical change. Crisis sounds sensational. That’s why the media have kept the myth alive.

One good Social Security reform would be ending the cap on wages taxed for the system. It is currently set at $76,200. That splendid gift for affluent workers is something the Republicans don’t like to mention.

Another fair way to get more money into Social Security would be to tax income beyond wages. There is no logical reason to exempt income from dividends and interests from Social Security tax. The system is supposed to be a safety net for us all.

The coming assault on Social Security bearing the clunky euphemisms “privatization” will tell us if progressives have any fight left in them. Resistance will be difficult. Women’s aging issues, especially the high rate of poverty among old women who live alone, have not been part of the feminist agenda. In France, approximately .08 percent of old women are poor; in the Netherlands, 0.0 percent have. Here the figure is roughly 13 percent, and if the near poor are counted in, it is closer to 25 percent. These numbers will not frame the public discussion of Social Security reform.

Old-age poverty is also concentrated among minority elders. They are represented by groups such as the National Hispanic Council on Aging, but they lack a single national organization to speak against the reduction but they lack a single national organization to speak against the reduction in Social Security benefits that lurk in “privatization.” People of color are already disadvantaged in the system because of their shorter life expectancies.

President Clinton proposed voluntary individual accounts separate from Social Security. They would have preserved the philosophy of social insurance. The “carved out” accounts under privatization coming from the current payroll tax would be subject to fluctuations of the stock market. Its recent bumpy ride points out the danger of diverting even 2 percent of Social Security funds. Some Mainers who planned to retire this year probably decided not to after their investments shrank. Conservatives want workers to trust that the market will be up when they want to retire.

Building risk into a secure system is unwise and unfair to the majority of women workers and to working-class Americans who depend heavily on Social Security. The proposed change is the most extreme made in the system since it began in 1935. It will have to be paid for by an increase in payroll taxes, a cut in benefits, an increase in the eligibility age or a change from 35 years to 38 as the number used to calculate benefits. Any of these changes will disproportionately harm women and the working class. The affluent will be the chief beneficiaries of privatization.

Their representatives, the hastily assembled panel on Social Security “reform,” have already decided that privatization is a good idea. One panel member said his Social Security tax money would be better off under his mattress, a hint of the level of sophistication he brings to his task. People who think Social Security will not be there for them have more to fear from space aliens jamming their television reception.

The University of Michigan recently published a cartoon booklet called “Is Social Security Broke?” by Barbara R. Bergmann and Jim Bush. They cleverly refute the argument that Social Security is in trouble and they explain why “privatization” is a bad idea.

The ghost of Franklin D. Roosevelt still haunts conservatives. Their exorcism rite, soon to be performed over Social Security, should be called by its proper name, Welfare for Wall Street.

Margaret Cruikshank lives in Corea.