[PEN-L:3060] Re: privatizing Soc Sec

[Ellen Dannin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

I'm curious whether the suggestion that social security be privatized is 
not the first step to abolishing it.  At the present time, the wealthier 
people in this country already have little to gain or lose from whatever 
happens to social security.  Private pensions have made social security 
only a portion of their retirement income, and they have been freed by 
the social security tax cap from having to invest as fully in the system 
as must lower income workers.

To the extent they can effectively pull more money out of the system 
there will be less and less support for social security by those with 
political clout.  In the end, social security will be seen as 
a plan that benefits only those who didn't have the foresight or skills 
to merit a good paying job that would have netted them a private 
pension.  Then it will be easy to eliminate.

This would be a strategy akin to that being used to gut the ACC in New 
Zealand as a provider of health care.  Other programs have also gone this 
way through a stepped in program of semi-privatization and decommitment.

ellen

Ellen J. Dannin
California Western School of Law
225 Cedar Street
San Diego, CA  92101
Phone:  619-525-1449
Fax:    619-696-9999