Understand the Right's Attack on Social Security by Dave Johnson

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.truth-out.org/sen-bernie-sanders-understand-rights-attack-social-security/1314629286

The Haters

Conservatives have hated Social Security from the start, because it is a program that demonstrates once and for all the value of progressive governance. Social Security is as clear an example of We, the People watching out for and taking care of each other as there ever was. It has made a huge difference n the lives of older people, and their/our families. It works, is cost-effective and requires minimal overhead to keep it going. So they hate it.

A very recent example of conservative hatred for Social Security came from Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who said, that We, the People helping each other makes us weak,

"These programs actually weakened us as a people. ... All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job."

Substitute the words "We, the People" or "each other" for "government" in Rubio's statement and you'll get the point: people don't have to worry so much because we're taking care of each other. He says that makes us weak. Yikes!


Decades Of Attacks

For decades conservatives who hate Social Security have been using every trick in the book to turn people against the program. Over and over you hear, "It's a Ponzi scheme." "It won't be there for you." This latest attack is that it "makes us weak." And of course the old classic: "Social Security is broke."

[mahina]

1. Off to the greatest with you.

Thank you for this very interesting post. It does help me understand something that had me baffled...why would they lie so blatantly and so consistently?

Mahalo.

[indepat]

2. And finally a Democrat willing to do the RW's bidding happens upon

White House: the RW's yearning for a once-in-a-lifetime wet dream is realized. :patriot:

[DJ13]

3. I understand the GOP's hatred of SS, its the alignment with them by some Dems I dont get

Democrats who propose 'changes' to SS, THE signature program of the Democratic party, seems tantamount to some Republicans denouncing Reagan and supplyside economics.

[KansDem]

4. I had an argument with a right-winger a couple of months ago...

He swore up and down that Social Security was "welfare." I told him it was an insurance policy and asked him if he considered his car insurance as "welfare," also his home-owners insurance or his life insurance. I said Social Security was an insurance policy that we pay premiums on and it's there when we need it. Just like his insurance policies.

I asked him if he considered his various policies to be "welfare." He wouldn't answer but kept insisting Social Security was "welfare."

I lost my temper and finally told him he was crazy and to crawl back under his tea pot.

[lindysalsagal]

5. K&R

[dehaiti]

6. The Right's Attack on Social Security

I believe the right's dislike is actually more simple. All employees pay into the social security system from which they or their survivors will benefit. This payment is required to be matched by the employer each payday and THAT'S what they really hate.They hate paying into a system from which they will get no benefit. It's the same reason they killed or bankrupted pensions. When Bush was pushing for privatizing a portion of social security <25%> I heard an employer enthusiastically supporting it, he was saying people could control their own money etc. I asked him if he would continue to contribute 100%, 75% to the employees remaining social security plan and the other 25% to their new private investment plan? He got red faced and said of course not smart ass.
Why most people don't see why the right REALLY hates social security and medicare is beyond me. They are hiding their real objections behind BS political rhetoric.

[BoredNow]

7. It may just be me

but it seems the rightwing WANTS a socialist up-rising so that they can REACT forcefully.
All through history, the ruling elite have pushed the working class to the breaking point, only to crack down ruthlessly when they revolt - further consolidating their power.
The French Revolutionaries knew this, and they were the first revolution to be equally ruthless. They knew that if they didn't, the aristocracy would find a way to bounce back.

This is why, just a few years later, Otto von Bismarck set up the first state run welfare state. He was faced with a socialist up-rising, so Germany built a welfare state (that they could control) while passing anti-Socialist laws.
German workers had sickness, accident and maternity benefits, old age pensions,
and unemployment insurance.
No one mistook Bismarck as a Socialist.
The ruling elite knew that the welfare state was a way of keeping the real Socialists from
taking power. This is why Hitler kept them, and the businessmen understood this.

During the great depression, this same tactic was used because the socialist were a very real threat to the 'monied elite'. They knew that if they didn't set up a social safety net they could lose it all to a fascist or communist take over. It had already happened in Europe.

So maybe the corporate aristocracy has decided that they have given away too much. Maybe they think it's time to wipe the slate clean.