Last week I wrote a brief post explaining why guaranteed government old age pensions, like Social Security in the United States, the State Pension in the United Kingdom, or Old Age Security in Canada, are the only mechanism that has ever been invented for ensuring security and dignity in retirement, and need to be centered in any attempt to reduce elder poverty.
This is not an ideological, partisan, or political claim, it’s simply a fact: every other attempt to provide retirement security has either failed, like IRA’s and 401(k) plans in the United States, or relied on a supplemental government guarantee, like our Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. You can conceptually push back the government guarantee as far as you like, but if senior citizens are going to be able to count on income in retirement, that income is ultimately going to have to come from the public coffers, either directly or through some feat of financial engineering.
At the end of that post, I mentioned in passing that “my preference would be fewer wars, higher taxes, and less debt, while if you’re a Republican your preference might be for more wars, lower taxes, and more debt.” Reader Ben asked a thoughtful question:
“One thing that bothers me though is how you tend to attack Republicans and conservatives when you don’t have to.
You could have just said you prefer fewer wars, higher taxes, and less debt. Which would be a valid, generalized, statement. Why did you feel the need to have to take a jab at Republicans/conservatives?”
Since Ben seems to have asked the question in good faith, I think I owe him a good faith answer.
Why must we give the problem we’re facing a name?
We are 6 days away from a general election in which a third of the seats in the United States Senate and the entire House of Representatives will be filled, and if you did not know anything else about the world, you might carefully examine the résumés of the candidates in your district and select the most intelligent, honorable, and industrious public servants to fill those seats.
But you would be wrong to do so. That’s because the crisis facing America is not a lack of intelligence, a lack of honor, or a lack of industry in our public servants. The crisis facing America is the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is a coalition of plutocrats committed to activating the racial and cultural grievances of their elderly voting base in order to secure power long enough to dismantle the regulatory state, tax base, and welfare system of the United States. And there are no exceptions.
The “good,” “honorable” members of the Republican Party are just as committed to dismantling our society as the vile reprobates. Ben Sasse wants to cut Social Security benefits just as much as Ted Cruz. Jeff Flake wants to poison our water, air, and soil just as much as Mitch McConnell. Susan Collins wants to cut taxes just as much as Rand Paul.
Mitt Romney, the Republican Senate candidate in Utah, is by all accounts an honorable man, who will nonetheless immediately and passionately set about voting to strip health insurance from millions of Americans the second he takes office. The problem is not that Mitt Romney is a bad person; the problem is that Mitt Romney is a Republican.
The Republic may be doomed but we still have to live here
The shredding of our system of government in the hands of conservative ideologues is not something that gives me any pleasure. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the god-emperors on the Supreme Court have caused a serious breakdown in the transmission mechanism between the needs of the population and the desire of elected officials to address them, and the entrenching of a conservative amateur judiciary means those losses will be extraordinarily difficult to recover from, if we are indeed ever able to.
But we still have to live here. There will never be a moment when we get to say “ah, well, the bad guys won.” Every single day we will still have to make the choices in our lives that will make the world a better place for ourselves, our children, and every future generation. And on Tuesday, November 6, 2018, that means sending Democrats to Congress.
Wow. While your leftist leanings have been a common theme through-out your posts, I always considered them normally well supported by some logic and an intelligent addition to the public debate and interested to read and open to be persuaded.
This complete loss of rational consideration with your recent posts is a sad statement about the growing intolerance demonstrated by the left. It really is quite ironic that many of the champions of tolerance are very intolerant of other view points. The “champions” of the elderly, impoverished or disenfranchised often want to strengthen the same programs which significantly contribute to these negative conditions in the first place.
You can vote for your Democrats who give us ‘more wars, higher taxes, more debt, more disenfranchisement and more dependency.” You can continue the class-, race- and (name it)- segmentation and warfare narrative. Or you can support programs that strengthen the country and economy which raise all ships regardless of race, creed or background. .
Don,
Do you think Republicans have not done everything possible to dismantle our environmental regulatory infrastructure? Do you think they aren’t planning to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Do you think they aren’t planning to cut taxes?
In other words, is there something in particular you object to in this post? Or do you just spend too much time on Facebook?
—Indy
Indy,
I believe there is an attempt at appropriate ‘right sizing’ of the regulatory infrastructure (environmental and other). I think intelligent people can discuss the pro;s and con’s of this and admit there is some appropriate middle ground that is not static, but can change as new issues arise or when understanding on old issues are found to be incorrect. There is very often a lack of consideration on total lifecycle impact. Sometimes even worse is the panic/mania that can set-in on a topic generally irrelevant or inconsequential. No one wants the Pacific plastic patch. Analysis indicates the vast majority of ocean plastic come from a few major rivers in Asia.and Africa. North American rivers would be a tiny fraction and plastic straws an even tiny fraction of that. Yet, it is the rage to ban plastic straws. Maybe this is a silly example, and I am sure there are plenty of examples you can give where regulations are too lax. Note: I work in an industry very active in this space and there is significant progress on both the sourcing (what plastic is made from) as well as recovery (new and better ways to recycle)…not because of any regulation but because it is the right thing to do and can become the economical thing to do as well. .
I believe there is a necessary attempt to strengthen Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These are important safety nets, but should be periodically reviewed/renewed. I believe the people that need help should be helped. I also know (believe would be a better word) that there is substantial abuse of some of these systems which should anger everyone as it diminishes the ability/will to truly and generously take care of the needy. Welfare roles dropped dramatically in the 90’s with welfare reform, but as people figured out the new system they discovered the benefits of SSI disability and now the rolls of disabled Americans receiving SSI has swelled dramatically. Have jobs become so dangerous that disability has grown so much? You likely see the strategies discussed among the FIRE crowd to manage income to maximize public benefits and subsidy. I would prefer not to subsidize someone who has strategically chosen to withdraw early from the workforce/business. I cheer them on to retire early and live their dream life, but they should also pay their way. I recognize they are smart, mostly ethical and playing exactly by the rules defined by our representatives.
I am fine with reduced taxes. What is the right level of taxation? I can’t answer that. If we talk only income taxes, since the great proportion of these are paid by so few, almost any tax reduction can be panned as ‘tax cuts for the rich’. This is part of the class-segmentation and division that i dislike seeing. I am glad there are rich people that have invested, built a business, hired people and prospered. These people and their companies result in employment which I am grateful for.
I object to the overall premise of the post. “Democrats = good. Republicans = bad”. ‘shredding of our system of government in the hands of conservative ideologues’ – really? Gerrymandering is not exclusive to either party. One person’s voter suppression complaint is another person’s protect the integrity of the vote. I went to vote with a driver’s license which had expired X days previous to the last election and was denied to vote. I happened to have a utility bill in the car which was good enough to vote with. The utility had never done any verification of who I was. Free government issued IDs to enable voting should be a very reasonable position.
I am not a Facebook person; and very rarely post comments. I appreciate the knowledge and information that you impart to the Saverocity community. I guess I missed your post was filed under ;rant;…it is in fact your blog and you can say what you want. The strength of language was so far different than the norm for your posting (and to me seemingly strongly emotional and irrational) that I felt pulled to comment. As I shared before, I believe intelligent people can have different opinions and carry an intelligent debate.discussion, but the overall premise of your initial post would make such engagement difficult.
Cheers! Right on! Republicans can’t have it both ways. “We want zero taxes AND we will protect social security (during election time) and we’ll protect preexisting conditions (they don’t say it won cost 400-800% more than insurance for someone without one).
If you care about fiscal sustainability today’s Republican Party has basically sworn off the fiscal hawks of the 90’s. Remember George Bush raised taxes to push through spending cuts, while Newt Gingrich pushed the balanced budget amendment. Meanwhile you’re going to fix entitlements after signing a giant tax cut to corporations?
Thank you Indy
+1
Here’s an idea.
Let’s make everyone a free agent and vote on the issues and not along party lines.
I like my politicians like I like my hotels and airlines.
But I did vote Democrat 100% because of the importance of health care and the need to bring the NRA to its knees and limit their influence and control over Republicans.
This is the way the game is played – today. Kind of sad, actually.