Dean Baker Quotes
Social Security has proved far more solvent and sound than anything Wall Street has produced.
Dean Baker, Macroeconomist, Co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Quoted in Mother Jones, May / June 2009
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Privatizing Social Security was the main piece of proposed legislation of George W. Bush’s second term. It was a conservative mantra for several years. It was finally defeated by a grass roots campaign of what Bush and his supporters referred to as scare tactics—projecting what might happen if the plan were implemented and the stock market went down substantially. With the Meltdown of 2008, the market crashed and this is what Galbraith is referring to. It would have been much worse than any of the privatization opponents had suggestion that even the staunchest economic conservatives would no longer advocate for privatizing Social Security. It was never even suggested in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives of 2012-2013.
18 years later, his son—George W. Bush—made the “nutty idea” one of the main planks in his Presidential legislative program. After the younger Bush traveled the country selling his reform ideas, the public came down on the side of his father and rejected the President’s “nutty idea.”
This statement was quoted over and over by his Presidential opponent, Lyndon Johnson in the campaign of 1964. Although, a wealthy person could on the average do a little better with a private investment of equivalent money and a disability insurance, those citizens of less wealth could not do so as easily. And few could obtain the disability and survivor benefits that comes along with Social Security. Goldwater wanted to make Social Security Voluntary, and most Americans thought the Goldwater prescription for Social Security would kill the program and did not support him. Conservatives have argued for this idea ever since, including Geirge W. Bush who made it a centerpiece of his administration’s program. It was rejected by the voters, and most of those were proven right when with the 2008 stocks had lost 50% of their value—the people who had retired and depended on their return from investments were mostly in terrible trouble. And of course, even in good times, some people who invest in the stock and bond markets do well and some do poorly. What would society do about those who lost most of their retirement. Let them starve because they invested badly?
The hearing dealt with the crash of the Enron Corporation stock and the subsequent loss of jobs and pension money of employees.
Clinton wanted to strengthen Federal control over how private pensions like 401k plans were managed and increase the penalties for fraud and abuse. The legislation failed. About 8 years later, the nation was in a private pension crisis with fraud, underfunding, and mismanagement destroying much of the value of American’s pensions and transferred more debt onto the Federal Government. Clinton critics argue that the proposed legislation was too weak to have prevented the serious problems that ensued, while supporters claim that he had to propose very little because of the opposition to doing anything. The quote is important because it shows early government knowledge of a potential problem which did not good as the system failed to build in any protection for the future
Dean Baker is an American macroeconomist and co-founder, with Mark Weisbrot, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C. He is credited as one of the first economists to have identified the 2007–08 United States housing bubble.
