Subject: [Homestead] The intentional, mindless unravelling of social contract
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:51:37 -0500
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.