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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

William F. Buckley is one of my favorite writers. I find him refreshingly 
and independently intelligent and original in his thinking. Here he offers 
his perspective on the buzz topic of the day, social security reform:

December 17, 2004, 1:30 p.m.

Penetrating Social Security
William F. Buckley

Another theatrical setting for the ideological dispute.

It becomes clearer, day by day, that the talk about reforming Social 
Security is an ideological debate. The New York Times’s summary on December 
17 is useful: “Away from the conference [called by President Bush during 
the week], some opponents of Mr. Bush’s approach, mostly liberals who want 
to preserve the current Social Security program, said in interviews that 
the administration was exaggerating the scale of the problem to create an 
air of crisis that justified radical but unnecessary changes like creating 
private investment accounts.”

The federal Social Security program was the crowning intervention of the 
New Deal. It has always depended heavily on illusions. The first of these 
was that money paid in to Social Security was actually being sequestered 
someplace, subject to convenient materialization when contributors reached 
senior age. A second illusion was that the program was designed for those 
who would otherwise be in need. A third illusion was that money paid out 
would correspond in some way with money paid in, and that the age at which 
payments would be activated would coincide in some way with the age at 
which physical decrepitude set in.

What happened, of course, is that Social Security became a general welfare 
program. Year after year, politicians proclaimed it untouchable. In fact it 
has been modified over a dozen times.

What the current fight does is give us another theatrical setting for the 
ideological dispute. Begin at right-wing position A: There shouldn’t be a 
federal Social Security program. People should look after their own needs, 
making arrangements with family, with employers, and with private insurance 
companies.

Left wing position Z: Americans who reach a certain age should not be 
concerned about income. Ours is a welfare society, and what welfare is 
better earned, or more keenly needed, than old age assistance? So . . . pay 
out the money when people reach a certain age and stop squawking.

Conservative critics pursue their long war of attrition. It begins with the 
question: When should a recipient be entitled to receive money?

On this point the conservatives can hold the floor triumphant without any 
problem, because history unmistakably affirms that it was contemplated by 
the framers of the program that payments should begin at about the age at 
which Americans begin to die, which Americans used to do in their early and 
mid-sixties.

What came, of course, was longevity, ironic in that it brought not only the 
happy prospect of longer lives, but also the unhappy prospect of hugely 
increased medical expenses to make that life possible and, tangentially, 
pleasant.

Here the liberals won the battle decisively — payments would not correspond 
with health. True, by the year 2027, Americans will start receiving 
payments only on reaching age 67. But if the spirit of the whole 
arrangement were faithfully exercised, payments would not begin until 
approximately age 73. The fiscal problem would not evaporate, but it would 
have been hugely diminished.

The assumption that moneys paid in would be put away was quickly 
overwhelmed by reality. The government proceeded to spend Social Security 
contributions, and acknowledged an obligation to replace them with cash as 
individual subscribers reached payout time.

An opening for the conservatives: You have all this money accumulating in a 
Social Security account. Never mind that it’s there not in gold bars but in 
government I.O.U.’s, why not let subscribers specify how some of these 
reserves should be invested? That way two things are accomplished: You give 
the subscriber a shot at a larger return (funds invested at private 
discretion historically outperform government bonds), and you detach from 
the Social Security “fund” a hunk of money now available to augment the 
capital pool, thus yielding more employment, and a higher rate of economic 
growth.

Opponents make the entirely plausible point: If you subtract, say, a 
trillion dollars from the I.O.U. fund, you’re going to have to come up with 
the money to pay obligations in place. If, for example, Veterans Hospitals 
are going to cost $250 million, which in the past had been generated by 
Social Security payments, where are you going to go when those funds are 
forfeit to the new system?

Taxation! the liberals say.

The conservatives respond: None of your business. It’s the people’s money. 
Don’t act as if it were yours!

The objective of Mr. Bush is admirable. The complaints of the liberals are 
real. We are dealing with a structure composed of lights and shadows, but a 
structure which, within the next 38 years, has to come to terms with real 
people, real money, resourceful politicians.

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http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley.asp