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How to unravel the social contract---create fear, work furiously on 
dividing families into conflicting age groups---except children, they do 
not vote


Boston.com     THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
The Boston Globe
ELLEN GOODMAN
Divide and conquer on Social Security

By Ellen Goodman, Globe Columnist  |  January 16, 2005

WASHINGTON
I HAVE to give the president credit for being bilingual. Over the past 
weeks, he's been talking about Social Security as if we were two 
Americas. Not red and blue. Not rich and poor. Just younger and older 
America.

On Tuesday, Bush held one of those carefully staged "conversations" to 
push his plan for privatizing Social Security. In soothing language, he 
told the older generation not to worry their pretty little gray heads 
about the whole thing: "If you're a senior receiving your Social 
Security check, nothing is going to change."

In a more forceful language, he told the younger generation to be 
afraid, very afraid: "I want you think about a Social Security system 
that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has 
got the willingness to act now."

This is not a linguistic accident. The administration's goal is to 
placate the elders and alarm the young, to divide (the generations) and 
conquer. And it's having some success.

Remember the infamous memo by a Karl Rove aide saying that to sell 
privatization, the public must be convinced that "the current system is 
heading for an iceberg"? Well, in the most recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup 
poll, nearly two-thirds of those under 30 say they don't think Social 
Security will be there for them when they retire. This is the age group 
also most likely -- by 55 percent to 42 percent -- to think that 
privatizing is a "good idea."

In fairness, the Social Security debate is prodding all Americans to 
think about the future in a country where the long run has been in 
awfully short supply. But at the same time, we are being encouraged by 
the White House "reformers" to think as if we lived in subdivided 
generations rather than in connected families across the life span.

We are, in short, expected to think as a series of "me generations," 
forgetting how an elderly parent's solvency and security are linked at 
the heart and the pocketbook to their children and grandchildren.

Five years ago, there were 4.2 million Americans over the age of 85. By 
2050, there will be 20 million. There are already millions of 65- and 
70-year-old retirees who still have parents as well as children and 
grandchildren. They fuel the concern about Social Security shortfalls. 
But they are also reminders of very long-term family concerns.

My own family ranges across four generations and nearly a century of 
experience. My mother was born long before Social Security. When 
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the plan into law, the average life span 
was about 60. Yet many of the elderly ended up dependent on their 
children. Despite all the nostalgia for yesteryears when generations 
lived under one roof, I have yet to meet a single elder who wants to be 
financially dependent on her children.

As recently as 1960, half our seniors were officially poor. Now, largely 
because of increases in Social Security, only 10 percent are. We know 
that's meant a better late life. Have we forgotten that their greater 
security also means that middle-aged Americans in the club-sandwich 
generation can provide more help to their children?

Social Security is not "the" crisis it is touted as, and privatization 
is certainly not the cure. Medicare is a much larger iceberg and the 
privatization plans being hatched raise the risk --and the deficit -- 
while they lower the benefits. There are saner and safer options to the 
great unraveling offered by the president.

Still, it's the attempt to put a bilingual wedge between the two 
Americas that strikes me. And maybe the good news is that it isn't 
working among the older nation.

About two-thirds of Americans over 50 do indeed believe their check is 
in the mail and that "nothing is going to change." At least for them. 
Nevertheless the same two-thirds think privatizing is a "bad idea." They 
are looking ahead to younger Americans.

The people often slandered as greedy geezers seem to have a perspective 
from their place in history. The elders in my family remember the 
Depression. The baby boomers remember dot-com boom and bust. We all have 
albums of best laid plans.

Those who have passed 50 may be more conscious of living in 
interdependent families. Indeed in a recent GrannyVoter poll, three out 
of four grandparents said their views about Social Security were based 
on their grandchildren's future as well as their own.

All in all, I am not surprised that the people who want to unravel the 
social contract start with young adults. Those who are urged to feel 
afraid, very afraid, have both the greatest sense of independence and 
the most finely honed skepticism about government.

But this is a time to also use the shared language of family. Sometimes, 
truly, grandmother knows best.

Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman AT globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company