Apparently, Bush is once again going to promote the partial privatization of social security at the RNC convention as part of his on-going theme of an `ownership' society AP story . (Hey, if you have enough money you can even own a President, ain't our society great!)
In response to analysis a la Krugman that shows that this makes no fiscal sense, the Repugs will undoubtedly respond with the usual line of "this is your money" and point out that they are only referring to a `small percentage of social security' revenues (aka the camel's nose). But it seems to me that this argument should be answered by owning up to the fact that social security is a safety net for the folks who need it, those not savvy enough to play the market, unlucky enough to have invested in Enron or unfortunate enough to have their pension gutted by a company (or state govt.) that is going belly up. And besides, I know that this may come as a surprise to many, but you can already save your money for retirement, the only problem being that many of us cannot afford to. The point being that privatization of social security is really only going to help those who need it the least.
Of course, this pill will be sugar-coated in some manner and most likely will not be called privatization but be hidden in some euphemism, probably `social security ownership'. On the plus side, I really think privatization is a loser issue for the Repugs if the Dems can frame it properly, Reagan's big social security tax hike which was going to preserve social security for a 50 years and has actually succeeded in that (with the only drawback being that the tax is incredibly regressive) needs to used to beat Bush (and Greenspan) on the head. I am also at a loss as to why Kerry's credentials as a fiscal conservative--did you know that he was a big supporter of Gramm-Rudman, me neither--haven't been trotted out to date, I can only guess that they are saving some ammo for closer to the election but it seems time is getting a little short. My hope is that they know what they are doing, but if they cannot nail Bush on privatizing Social Security then I think the outlook will be bleak.