Privatized Social Security & Elder Welfare

It does not take a genius to realize that privatizing Social Security under any formula will result in the increased demand for welfare services for the aged when the generation with those privatized benefits is due to receive them.  The nature of the stock market is such that some of those people will have failed in their investments and they will need help—more help than those who are receiving the standard Social Security benefit. 

Some of those under the privatized option may do better; but others will do worse, and they will need welfare services which the government will have to supply if they are not to become a blight on those around them.

Not only that, privatization of Social Security invites wasting the investment of capital in our national welfare through the Social Security program, whatever its shortcomings.  Let me illustrate by analogy.

The other day some of my family ate at the Grandview Buffet in the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh.  Since we had not been there before, we walked through the casino section to see what it was like. None of us had ever been to it before, or used slot machines.  My son saw a machine that took dollar bills and put in a $5 bill and began pushing buttons, which made the machine display different pictures and messages which did not really make much sense, except that eventually we figured the game was over.  He wondered whether he should try again, but he decided against it since none of us knew how it worked.

For those who do not know what they are doing, privatization of Social Security will be the same thing: many people will not know how to manage accounts in the private market, although undoubtedly there will be many offers of assistance available to them. I cannot imagine a constitutionally valid way of barring individuals from claiming the right to manage their Social Security accounts if they are privatized; and the more they are warned about the dangers, the more some individuals may claim that right.

We have the right to fail and to become a burden on society.  The purpose of Social Security is to be the end of the line in that process, at least to some extent. Privatizing Social Security would frustrate that intent and betray what the U.S. Constitution calls the federal government’s responsibility to promote the general welfare.

Want to Help? Serve with Care and Communication

In what turned out to be his final gift to the world, Jean-Domnique Bauby relayed his impressions of and responses to hospital workers who were responsible for caring for him.  Although only in his early 40’s, he suffered a stroke which left him totally paralyzed except for the ability to blink his left eye and slightly move his head back and forth.  Since he had been the editor-in-chief of a major French magazine, a publisher arranged for a transcriber to decode and record his thoughts for the book we read in English as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  He died a few days after it was published about a year after the stroke.  The book has also been made into an award-winning movie by the same title.

The book records an imaginative and rich inner life that the film only partly captures, though the film situates the story in its French setting which will greatly assist Americans reading the book, though it does seem to take some unexplained liberties. 

In this post I want to highlight Bauby’s general comments about hospital staff. He makes particular comments here and there throughout the book, but the comments referred to here have had an effect on me because in them he struggles with his profound dependency on those who are being paid to help him.

We learn about ourselves when we encounter those in extreme need because it forces us to either face the possibility that we could someday be in the same position—or we may choose to ignore our feelings, in effect to suppress them. I work in a hospital; but I only occasionally remember that if I live long enough, I too, will one day be one of those unknown patients being pushed around in a wheelchair.  This book has challenged me to question how I think about those who are unable to communicate normally.

I think Bauby has given his readers a gift.  He has illustrated how hard it is to be in such great need, and how angry it makes a person.  Yet he shows how forgiving a needy person can be in spite of that anger when we continue to act with even just a degree of care and responsibility. We do not have to be perfect and we can accept each other when we are far from perfect. Yet we can still aspire to do better!

Here are the key excerpts from the 1997 edition…

As the weeks go by, this forced solitude has allowed me to acquire a certain stoicism and to realize that the hospital staff are of two kinds: the majority, who would not dream of leaving the room without first attempting to decipher my SOS messages; and the less conscientious minority, who make their getaway pretending not to notice my distress signals. Like that heartless oaf who switched off the Bordeaux-Munich soccer game at halftime, saying "Good night!" with a finality that left no hope of appeal. (p. 40-41)

 At first some of the staff had terrified me. I saw them only as my jailers, as accomplices in some awful plot. Later I hated some of them, those who wrenched my arm while putting me in my wheelchair, or left me all night long with the TV on, or let me lie in a painful position despite my protests. For a few minutes or a few hours I would cheerfully have killed them. Later still, as time cooled my fiercest rages, I got to know them better. They carried out as best they could their delicate mission: to ease our burden a little when our crosses bruised our shoulders too painfully. (p. 110)

…I realized that I was fond of all these torturers of mine. (p. 111)

Thank goodness it was BP!

If the deep-water drilling accident that was bound to happen eventually had been caused by a smaller, less well-endowed oil company, the entire world would have been in a much greater mess.

As bad as the Gulf oil spill is, at least BP has the resources to commit to cleaning it up responsibly.

BP is taking a lot of the blame for what is really a systemic problem:  Sure BP took cost-cutting risks—as would every oil company in a competitive climate. That is why we need government regulators to ensure that reasonable risk management precautions are carried out by every company, to not only ensure safety but also to ensure them that they all operate in an even playing field where the same rules apply to all.

What happened in the Gulf is that not only did BP cut some corners, which we can assume every other company also cuts to one degree or another; but the government also cut some regulatory corners and did not enforce the risk management protocols it should have.

Presumably getting the regulatory system back into operating order is why President Obama called for the six-month halt on deep-water drilling. The government needs to get its act together! 

A disaster like this could happen again if the government does not do its job right, and we won’t be so lucky if next time the company involved is not as well-endowed as BP.

Thank goodness it happened to BP!

Do political moderates have a future?

Americans want their leaders to cooperate with each other and work together — that means being willing to make reasonable compromises. George Bush first got into office largely on the promise that he was a “uniter not a divider.” Barack Obama followed with the similar theme to “bring everyone to the table.”

We all know how polarization has developed over the past decade or so. The assumption that the middle ground — political centrism — would appeal to the majority of voters is now being questioned.  Perhaps there are just too many issues which people hold with idiosyncratic individuality as our pluralism becomes more deeply entrenched.

The Current Situation

David Brooks warns --

“…these days, the political center is a feckless shell. It has no governing philosophy. Its paragons are either nakedly opportunistic, like Arlen Specter, or caught in some wishy-washy middle, like Blanche Lincoln. The right and left have organized, but the center hasn't bothered to. The right and left have media outlets and think tanks, but the centrists are content to complain about polarization and go home. By their genteel passivity, moderates have ceded power to the extremes.”  (Read more)

For a further discussion of this issue, you can view or read the weekly analysis of Shields & Brooks on the PBS NEWSHOUR for May 21, 2010:  Shields and Brooks on Rand Paul Comments, Dangers of Centrism.

The way I read the situation however, borrowing David Brooks’ spectacles to view it, is that many of the true libertarians may be in the middle. They don’t organize into groups since their views are unique to themselves and perhaps their immediate subgroups. They vote according to their own principles as they understand them to best apply at the time of an election. They are not going to let political affiliation obligate them to a given party. But they may well have their own political philosophies.

The declining economy and shifts in the national political agenda have also left many voters angry and discontent. The way I see it, many of these independent swing voters may be uncommitted people whose beliefs will still be emerging and open to being influenced by those who take the time to engage them.  They will likely be even more open to rational discourse if economic conditions improve. Whatever their individual situations, however, as more and more people disengage from formal affiliations with religious and political groups, in the long run, the undefined middle might be up for grabs.

When we think of this broader social context, we are reminded of the need to distinguish between what people believe constitutes a good society and want they expect from their political leaders.  There may not always be a direct connection between these two factors any more.

Obama’s Centrist Leadership Style

I do think that President Obama has a somewhat defined centrist political philosophy, and that David Brooks has helped identify this. Brooks, however, seems to emphasize belief systems that might underlie centrism; but I think the leadership approach that produces the results that centrists seek is more important in focusing on centrism. Obama’s centrist style is easy to overlook.  He has come onto the national scene so quickly in his political career that his approach has not had time to be properly introduced, nurtured to maturity, or fully appreciated by the public; and it may well be rejected before even its preliminary results are evaluated or it is fully articulated and rationally considered. But it may well be an approach with a future, especially if those on the extremes continue to fail to do anything but beat each other up and knock each other down time after time if we keep electing one extreme and then the other.

The president’s centrist approach was most clearly explained in the context of religious conflicts in his Call to Renewal speech in 2006; but in reality his leadership style throughout his life has exemplified this philosophy.

In this speech he presented his approach to political leadership under what I have summarized as three “rules” or principles as described below in a condensed form.  I believe we see the president and his team regularly referring to these same concepts as they lead the country in every sphere of our national life — not only as they touch on religious concerns, although these principles were articulated in that context.  These are not special principles for treating religion. This speech just elucidates how the religious area should be integrated into these broad principles which guide in governing the entire society.  Remove the religious references and you have the basic principles of a centrist leadership philosophy.

• Principle # 1 — FREE EXPRESSION: When people participate in public discussion and debate, they should be free to fully express their beliefs.  Believers should be free to express their religious concerns.  Likewise, those who do not identify themselves as religious should be free to express their beliefs as they see them.  
• Principle # 2  — COMPROMISE: Although both religious and non-religious viewpoints should be heard and discussed, the goal of public discussion is to establish common agreement on value judgments in order to obtain the broadest possible base for legal action in a pluralistic, democratic society.
• Principle # 3 — GOOD WILL: Recognize the limits of the political process:  accept that significant change comes slowly; speak fair-mindedly about the issues; presume the best from each other.

As David Brooks has noted, Obama has towed the line tenaciously in pursuing his centrist approach to political leadership, drawing attacks from both left and right.

As already noted, it is important to distinguish between a centrist leadership style and centrist political beliefs, though ultimately the lines between them may become blurry as compromises are defended. Obviously a politician’s beliefs will vary somewhere along a scale from left to right. Obama is generally recognized as being left of center, although a careful reading of these principles will have to acknowledge that they are actually quite conservative since they allow for the rate of social change to occur at a pace set by the level of participation by the members of society. If people push back at proposed changes, they will not occur because there will be compromises.

If enough people want to slow down a given agenda item, then they can do so by getting involved.  But likewise, others can push back if they are so inclined to support proposed changes.  Only by getting involved will the democratic leadership style envisioned by President Obama really work; and when it is working best it might well appear to be most stagnant at times because of all the involvement of people making their voices heard. 

Angry involvement is not necessarily a bad thing; but it needs to be transformed by congressional leaders into compromises that will work for the benefit of their constituencies.  If they have been delivering unrealistic messages to them, they will not be able to deliver.  This is where the real Congressional gridlock begins, in the implied promises made by Congressional leaders to their constituencies, especially when they buy into the party line of the left and right think tanks that provide them with handy talking points.  If they have left themselves no room for compromise, they are in no position to lead for the good of America.

There needs to be a lot more attention given to how congressional leaders are communicating with their constituencies.  This may actually be where congressional gridlock begins!

Forecasting Future Trends

It is very difficult for social scientists to assess movements that are not organized in some way, and the desire of Americans to see a centrist politics operating for the good of America certainly has to rate as some kind of a movement even if it does ebb and flow, perhaps due to factors not directly related to politics.  Despite all the anger and fear currently displayed in polls, I do not see any evidence that centrism in political leadership is dead.  In fact, much of American anger is directed at Congress for not getting more accomplished. Congress is expected to lead, and this will entail compromise, even if it is done quietly so as not to offend too many sensibilities. 

One has to wonder whether researchers have yet figured out a way to assess centrist voters to see what kind of sense they really do make.  They might be surprised if they started to dig a little deeper!

Analyzing political leadership styles of political leaders and making them more widely known might lead us in a more profitable direction than we are currently heading. America has never clamored for leaders with moderate beliefs. We want leaders who are willing to forge workable compromises for the American people.

Obamacare at Last!

The healthcare reform that many of us hoped for in the presidential elections of the 1990’s finally began to become a reality in 2010, just as babyboomers are begin to retire. If fear mongers do not prevail, the me generation will leave behind a legacy besides a memory of their Social Security and Medicare burden on the economy. Unfortunately, it is many of that me generation — my own — who are most upset about Obamacare because they fear it will reduce their own benefits. Let our children and their children fend for themselves!

As our nation adjusts to Obamacare — as it would with any seismic shift — the various elements in our vast social and economic system will gradually make the appropriate adjustments to the new arrangements and we will be better off for it. In the long run, just about any improvement will make our country better off than the inequities and shortcomings produced by our current system, where the top 10% of people receive almost 50% of the wages and where “U.S. households in the top 20 percent of the income distribution own well more than 80 percent of the nation's wealth,” an entirely unnatural circumstance that cannot be explained simply by claiming that those 10-20% worked harder than the rest of us. Furthermore, “Between 1979 and 2005 the real income of the median household rose only 13 percent, but the income of the richest 0.1% of Americans rose 296 percent.”

There is no excuse why a nation as wealthy as ours cannot do a better job of healthcare. We probably have the best healthcare technology in the world; but we do not have the best system for delivering it equitably. We have neither the highest national standards of health nor the highest levels of health insurance coverage. Yet we are the wealthiest nation in the world. Something is very wrong with the way we have been doing things! The way things were done in the past cannot be our guide for the future.

Mostly what I hear when people complain about Obamacare is FEAR – What if this? What if that?

I have only heard arguments about potential costs that might possibly be valid (though in principle I can’t understand why we shouldn’t be willing to pay whatever it costs to do what is right); but these arguments are always met by opposing arguments and cannot be considered persuasive at this point since the actual cost of the Obamacare legislation has been calculated by the CBO to result in a net savings. What if we don’t adhere to the assumptions in the bill? FEAR! FEAR! FEAR!

There are also valid concerns about ever increasing bureaucracy since government programs tend to be self-aggrandizing. What if the Executive overextends his authority? What if Congress does not exercise proper oversight? FEAR! FEAR! FEAR!

Our constitution was born amidst all kinds of similar fears, fears about what might happen if one group or another were to take the nation in one undesirable direction or another; but they created our nation anyway. The only way to make progress is to act with the same kind of courage exemplified by the American founders.

What really gets me is that the Republicans violently resisted the public option of a government sponsored healthcare plan, which would have been the most effective approach to providing healthcare for any American who could not afford other plans — and now they now turn around and complain that the government does not have the right to require that all Americans obtain health insurance! They are making it look like they are determined to make sure that as many people as possible do NOT have healthcare coverage! Their just say no approach to virtually every Democratic proposal in Congress makes them look like the cause of our hamstrung government.

It looks to me like we need to get the public option clarified in Congress, which means we still need another strong Democratic majority at least one more time. This issue is not really over yet. And we don’t just need any Democrat in office. We need public option Democrats and we need this issue settled dramatically. Either that, or the Republicans are going to have to settle down and confirm the principle that we will require all Americans to obtain health insurance. This may well be the last chance the insurance industry has to clean up its act.

I’m no expert, but the way the US Constitution reads in plain English is,

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility… promote the general welfare… do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [Article I, Section 1] All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. [Section 8] The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes… and provide for the… general welfare of the United States.

It seems obvious to me that requiring everyone to obtain health insurance falls within these guidelines. Congress has the right to legislate and tax for the general welfare of all US citizens. I don’t see how there can be serious debate about the ultimate legal outcome of this any legal challenge. Why do people want to waste taxpayer dollars on it? Why do taxpayers approve of such frivolous waste of their taxes?

Our nation can afford whatever we set our minds to paying for. Most of the money out there is just the result of subjective calculations. The value of the dollar is based on guesswork, not objective reality; but it creates objective realities. Economics is a mental construct. It consists of our self-reflection on our behavior, and as such allows us to adjust that behavior. That is why the stock market sways with every bit of news affecting it. But that is also why economic reflection involves moral choice; and it is why we can also decide to find a way to afford Obamacare if we want it, if we consider it a morally good thing..

Our own inner sense of shared moral responsibility for fellow human beings will decide whether we will embrace Obamacare. We already have decided that defending our fellow citizens with military action is worthwhile, which is why we have the best military in the world and have engaged in many wars and conflicts. Now we have to decide whether we are truly committed to protecting our investment with the best healthcare system in the world.

Obamacare is the first step towards what we should have been doing all along. It is the right thing to do.

Obamacare at last!