A Social Security Grandstand Which Toys With Seniors

by: KathyinBlacksburg

Sat Feb 06, 2010 at 13:05:12 PM EST

In a move described here, designed to embarrass Republicans, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer are poised to force a vote on a resolution opposing the privatization of Social Security.  They think they can shame the No-Shame players, who fill the ranks of the Republican House Caucus.  But they cannot.  

House Democrats are going to force their Republican colleagues to vote on a resolution opposing the privatization of Social Security. The move shows Democrats are putting their full political muscle into painting the Republicans as enemies of Social Security and using the chief GOP budget writer Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to cut benefits as evidence.

The resolution wouldn't have the legislative authority to repeal Social Security should the vote go badly.  And I assume Speaker Pelosi is confident of the votes.  However, there are some limitations to what she can accomplish and some perils if she fails.  

It's possible that the Democratic leadership is a bit over-confident and may be left explaining why they thought this was a "good" idea.  Blue Dogs sometimes don't behave in predictable ways.  And some of them are all too predictably against Social Security anyway.  As Americans dig themselves out of the biggest recession since the Great Depression, they should not have to worry that momentum, of both a GOP and Blue Dog kind, could be building against them.

No, this is not a good time, if there ever is one, to needlessly frighten seniors, or those who, while just short of retirement age, have lost their jobs. Nor is it a good time to frighten the young who must now question whether they will ever be secure when they are too old and frail to work outside the home, or who no longer fit the youthful prototype of the "desirable" worker.

Wall Street has left most Americans with little to survive on in their older years.  Imagine how much worse off would be Americans who by the millions lost their jobs and much of their pension value.  The last thing Americans need is to hand over the one secure piece of their survival to Wall Street.  The best thing we can do for all generations is to shore up and increase the security of all three financial prongs to secure older years: 1) A strengthened public Social Security System; 2) a safer private pension system; and 3) private savings secured by making banks and Wall St. more responsible. It is an intergenerational pact we make with those both older and younger than we.  Those of us who have worked to earn our Social Security, support efforts to strengthen the system well beyond our life expectancy, so that our parents will be free from worry and our children and their children have a system worth having and worthy of them one day.  

Please write to Pelosi and Hoyer here and here.  Our financial security should not be toyed with.  That is true even if shaming the GOP seems very enticing.