| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-Misc |
| User: |
"Gandalf Grey" |
| Date: |
04 Feb 2005 11:58:04 AM |
| Object: |
"Ownership Society" versus New Deal |
from the February 03, 2005 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0203/p01s04-uspo.html
Ownership Society versus New Deal
Bush's push to reform Social Security and other programs frames a deeper
clash between individualism and safety net.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON - President Bush's domestic agenda, particularly his proposal to
reshape Social Security with private accounts, might mark the most profound
change in the relationship between Americans and the federal government
since the New Deal helped pull the United States out of economic depression
some 70 years ago.
Where the New Deal offered government aid to bring the nation out of an
unemployment morass, Mr. Bush's "ownership society" offers increased
individual choice and responsibility as an answer to the financial needs of
the modern age.
But with increased freedom may come increased risk - and that's perhaps the
nub of the debate over Bush's programs. What's the proper role of Washington
in ensuring the security of US citizens? How much should Americans simply
depend on themselves?
Opponents say Bush wants to unravel a safety net that's worked well for more
than half a century. Proponents say he is simply promoting the national
credo of individualism.
"People would really have choice, and the benefit to direct their own
lives," says Karl Zinsmeister, an American Enterprise Institute fellow and
expert on social issues.
"Ownership society" is a unifying theme that the Bush administration uses to
cover a variety of domestic proposals. The establishment of private accounts
within Social Security is clearly the highest-priority item involved, but
far from the only one: The established health savings accounts, plus home
ownership incentives and even tax reform, would all be "ownership society"
components, according to Bush officials.
Yet it's possible to exaggerate the extent to which the administration's
proposed legislative changes would actually go toward remaking American
society. Individuals would probably be limited in their choice of investment
vehicles for any private Social Security accounts, for instance. Traditional
Social Security would still exist, and still offer a guaranteed benefit -
albeit a smaller one than beneficiaries might otherwise expect.
"No one is proposing that there not be some kind of safety net," says Mr.
Zinsmeister, who is also editor of the AEI magazine The American Enterprise.
But breaking the current system, in which Social Security beneficiaries all
reap the same reward for the same investment, would constitute a profound
change in the nature of the system, say some experts.
"Since 1935 there has been an understanding that in return for a deduction
from one's wages, there would be compensation in the form of old-age
insurance. This would undermine that contract significantly," says William
Leuchtenburg, professor emeritus of history at the University of North
Carolina and one of the most prominent chroniclers of the New Deal era.
The paradox is that the New Deal in general, and Social Security in
particular, were originally designed with Americans' famous attraction to
personal liberty in mind.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted Social Security as a government
program consciously modeled after private insurance, says David Kennedy, a
professor of history at Stanford University and author of "Freedom From
Fear: The American People in Depression and War."
The Great Depression had swept away the financial security of many
Americans. The elderly in particular saw that all their savings and work
meant little in the face of widespread unemployment and bank failures.
Yet even so the architects of Social Security were highly sensitive to any
implication that the new program smacked of socialism. Frances Perkins, then
secretary of Labor, reacted indignantly to congressional implication that
the Roosevelt administration was imitating, however so slightly, European
socialistic programs.
"This is in our national DNA: We're wary of government, wary of the
intrusive state," says Dr. Kennedy of Stanford.
When President Truman tried to expand Social Security by adding health
insurance, Republican opposition doomed the plan. But by the time of the
Eisenhower administration, old-age pensions and unemployment insurance had
become politically untouchable, says Dr. Leuchtenburg of the University of
North Carolina. No Republican would have thought of undercutting it - with
the exception of Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who in his 1964
presidential bid inexplicably chose St. Petersburg, Fla., as the site to
announce his intention to do away with US old age insurance.
During the Great Society era of the Johnson presidency, the addition of
Medicare greatly expanded the US safety net for the elderly. Ironically, the
biggest expansion of Social Security arguably came during the Nixon years,
when congressional Democrats pushed through legislation providing for
automatic increases in Social Security benefits.
This traditional system is still the best way to protect the nation against
the possibility of poverty in old age, say proponents. Social Security
itself remains one of the most popular and successful programs in the
nation's history.
Furthermore, measured against European social-welfare programs, US
equivalents are both modest and in decent financial shape, say some.
"The New Deal was actually relatively modest," says Kennedy of Stanford.
But supporters of Bush's programs argue that this basic structure was set up
at a time when telephones were the coming thing, the Ford Model A was the
car of the moment, and Yankee-great-to-come Joe DiMaggio had just reached
the major leagues. "Desperately clinging to the social and political
philosophy of the 1930s is a losing proposition in a nation that has changed
as profoundly as ours has in the three generations since," writes James
Glassman, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles
we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
--Thomas Jefferson
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
