The Republican push to privatize Social Security is back!

Palin Trumps Obama - On a Trojan Horse Filled With Bankers

Richard Eskow — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:10:35 -0800

Never underestimate Sarah Palin. She did a better job articulating anti-banker sentiment at last week's Tea Party Convention than Obama's done. Its followers don't realize it, but the Tea Party movement is really a Trojan Horse filled with bankers and lobbyists. It's a brilliantly designed mechanism for channeling anti-bank rage to the banks' own benefit, with Palin et al. in the forefront.

And it could work.

The plan is to channel anti-Wall Street rage into an overall fury at "them" -- big government, "liberal elites," everybody who seems to be better off than you and your family -- and turn that rage toward the political party that most favors banks. It's not a new game. It's been going on since Nixon and Agnew inverted the historical understanding of the GOP as the party of big business and successfully painted the Democrats as a snobby group of elitists.

It's based on a simple bait-and-switch: Make sure that people stay angry at the bailout, which will essentially be history by the time of the next major election, and keep them from thinking about deregulation, which was the initial cause of the crisis. Emphasize the big bonuses -- an artifact of the bailout -- and ignore the rapacious and greedy behavior permitted by the weakening of oversight and actions like the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

That plan needs Democrats clumsy enough to let themselves be painted into a corner, despite their more middle-class-friendly proposals. Sadly, as back in Nixon's day, Dems seem happy to oblige. The president's hapless remarks yesterday about bonuses for Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein weren't quite as bad as some have painted them, when taken in context -- but the problem is what Democrats haven't yet learned: People don't take remarks like these "in context." Nuance isn't an effective response to fury or desperation.

Democrats disparage Palin's speaking skills, but she spoke to the public's frustration much more effectively: "While people on Main Street look for jobs, people on Wall Street -- they're collecting billions and billions in your bailout bonuses ... Where are the consequences? They helped to get us into this worst economic situation since the Great Depression. Where are the consequences?"

Contrast that with Obama's "I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen ... I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system." Palin came across like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, while the President sounded like Mr. Drysdale from The Beverly Hillbillies.

Granted, the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision makes groveling for corporate cash an even greater part of the political process than before. Even reliable Democratic ATMs like JPMorganChase (led by "very savvy businessman" Dimon) are firing a warning shot across Democrats' bow by stuffing fat wads of cash in the GOP kitty. Not that Democrats aren't benefiting plenty from Wall Street largesse -- Chuck Schumer's still their #1 Capitol Hill beneficiary -- but Dems are pushing for tighter regulation and far better oversight than the GOP would provide (not enough, but better.)

The irony is that this "populist" movement was a creation of the wealthy and privileged from the start. The "tea party" phrase arose, supposedly spontaneously, from the lips of CNBC reporter Rick Santelli. Santelli, a former futures trader himself, led a televised mock "uprising" of other traders -- the very people responsible for the problem -- against any effort to help homeowners seduced or duped by banks offering irresponsible mortgages. (A more odious display of sanctimonious self-righteousness is almost unimaginable.) Yet a variety of domain names related to the phrase "Tea Party" had already been registered before Santelli used the term, by organizations tied to ultraconservative and Republican interests. (More here - apologies for the repellent title, but the reporting's good.)

A quick review of the organizers behind what the National Journal calls "12 Key Tea Party Players to Watch" gives us the following:

- a Republican Senator (Tom Coburn)
- a wealthy New York real estate developer (Howard Rich)
- the ultraconservative head of Koch Industries (David Koch)
- a former Republican House Majority Leader (Dick Armey)
- the son of a Republican Member of Congress (Ned Ryun)
- the former campaign manager for a Republican Member of Congress (Frank Anderson)
- a former Republican member of the California Assembly (Howard Kaloogian)
- a fulminating Fox News mouthpiece (Glenn Beck)
- a former speechwriter for George H. W. Bush (Michael Johns)

It seems as if the only influential individual without glaring ties to the GOP or the ultra-right is the organizer of the Convention that hosted Palin, and he's a Nashville DUI attorney. (Write your own joke, as Ed McMahon used to say.) If the GOP/Tea Party connection isn't obvious enough already, in South Carolina they made it official. The Republican party and the Tea Partiers agreed to share a variety of resources, turning a long-time flirtation into a vow of marriage.

The "anti-bank" Tea Party movement's a Republican front, and Republicans are actively marketing themselves to Wall Street as a better - make that even better - bang for their campaign contribution buck than the Democrats.

The GOP's push for "less regulation" is exactly what the banking industry needs to confirm its absolute dominance over the American economy. It would ensure that its excesses are never curbed, perpetuating a system where bankers reap the rewards of success and taxpayers bear the cost of failure. And what's the other centerpiece of Republican economic policy?

Privatizing Social Security.

Where would everybody's Social Security dollars go under a privatization scheme? Why, to Wall Street, of course. The Tea Party plan is simple: Use anti-bank rage to help the Republicans win, so they can give banks even more power. Can the banksters really outsmart the Democrats and pull off a trick like that? From the look of things, the answer might well be:

You betcha.

No Mandate for Privatization

Alex Carter — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:54:07 -0800

Just as in 2005, the public can ensure that Republican leadership doesn't forget: There is NO public mandate for Social Security privatization. By an almost two-to-one margin, according to Democracy Corps surveys, the public says it will not support trading guaranteed retirement security and the most successful antipoverty program in the country's history for guaranteed benefit cuts and guaranteed risks on Wall Street. Grassroots campaigns across the country will revive the drive to save Social Security.

The Privatization Threat Is Back

Chris Collins — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:52:32 -0800

Prominent Republicans have come out publicly in past weeks stating that, given the chance in 2007, they will push Social Security privatization again. This includes...

President Bush and his Chief of Staff Josh Bolten

Treasurer Secretary Henry Paulson

House Majority Leader John Boehner

And other key Republicans

The Republicans apparently haven't learned their lesson from the 2005 defeat of privatization: the American public, armed with the facts, will overwhelmingly reject privatization for the bad deal that it is.

The Progressive Solution

Rick Perlstein — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:32:22 -0800

Progressives need to take a broad and bold approach to helping Americans establish a solid three-legged stool of retirement security.

Make the economy work. Most importantly, progressives must champion economic policies that benefit the many and not simply the few. With full employment and rising wages, Americans can save better, workers can demand better retirement benefits from employers and Social Security's projected shortfall can be reduced. Universal health care would reduce what families have to spend on health care costs and protect seniors against soaring drug and medical costs. Improved energy policies can help Americans save better by sparing them from rapidly-rising gas and home heating prices.

Strengthen Social Security. Progressives must work to strengthen Social Security and protect it from future assaults.

Hold companies accountable for pensions. Progressives must hold companies to their existing pension obligations. At the very least, progressives should require the following.

Every company must provide a retirement program for its workers, supplemented with an employer contribution.

The shop floor must be treated the same as the top floor. If the CEO has a defined benefit pension, workers should get the same; if the CEO has retirement stock options, workers should also. If worker pensions are cut back for a company in distress, CEO pensions should be as well.

Congress must require companies to fund the pension commitments they make. Congress must shore up the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's balance sheet to help workers whose companies go belly-up. At the same time, worker pension commitments should be at the front of the line, not the back of the line, in corporate bankruptcy proceedings.

Help Americans save. Progressives should also champion new ideas to help with personal savings. Congress has tried to help with tax deductions for retirement accounts, but this mostly helps the affluent at the top of the pay scale. These benefits should be consolidated into one tax-free savings account, in which the government provides a partial match for the savings of low-income workers (who don't benefit from the Bush tax breaks).

Start investment accounts. Every American should be provided with an investment account at birth a small sum that will expand tax-free over time and could be tapped to pay for higher education, housing, or retirement. Conservatives will like creating a new generation of investors; progressives will like giving poor and working people a chance to build up assets from birth.