Bureaucracy + Regulation = Privatization

Greg Anrig of the Century Foundation points out some more ways that Bush's Social Security plan could expand, rather than contract, the size of the state.

Comments

[gaius marius]

doesn't this thing have the air of a non-starter?

[thoreau]

Did anybody seriously believe that the Bush administration was going to put forward a plan that gave a smaller role to the gov't than the current system?

We need a dictionary to translate from Republicanese to libertarianese.

Privatize: 1. (libertarianese) To take a matter out of the government's hands and allow individuals to decide how to handle it, with the possibility that individuals may decide to hire private firms to do it.

2. (Republicanese) To give large companies a greater role in something currently handled by the government, without reducing the government's stake in it, and with preference given to companies that donated money to Republican candidates.

[thoreau]

Oh, and I think I know why so many libertarians mistakenly believe that the Republicans are fans of the free market: They read definition #1, skipped definition #2, and then looked at definition #3:

3. (Democratese) An expletive that denotes the worst course of action imaginable.

[CodeMonkeysteve]

Oh please, thoreau! Where do you come up with this crap? Next you'll be saying that California's electricty market wasn't actually "deregulated"!

😉

[Gary Gunnels]

CodeMonkeysteve,

But it wasn't. 🙂

[MayDay72]

Bush certainly deserves all the skepticism he gets when he attempts to become a shining proponent of The Free Market. It was mainly his proposal to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare that caused me to abandon the GOP and reluctantly register as a Libertarian. The war in Iraq, steel tariffs and his have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too position on the Assault Weapons Ban were also contributing factors.

But the Democrats really seem to have only two methods for solving problems:

1. Raise taxes.
2. Increase the scope of the government.

Okay maybe it is actually THREE methods...'Cause sometimes they combine methods 1 and 2. I guess what they say is true: "When your only tool is a hammer..." I'm thinkin' that in a decade or two I'll look a lot like a NAIL to the IRS.

The Democrats are currently not even convinced that there is a problem with the future solvency of Social Security. Their story seems to be: "Don't worry...It's not a crisis yet. Trust us...We'll take care of it sometime between 2018 and 2050 [wink-wink-nudge-nudge]."

My big fear is that they'll choose to do the most politically expedient thing: Raise taxes on Gen-X'ers as much as possible to make up for any budgetary shortfall. There are fewer Gen-X'ers than Baby Boomers. Even in a decade or two Gen X'ers will certainly still be politically weaker with fewer finacial resources than the 'Boomers. It will be more politically feasable to raise payroll taxes than reduce Social Security benefits or raise the age of retirement.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Isn't the universe expanding too?

[b-psycho]

I had a l'il throwaway thought about this whole hub-bub about how Dubya's plan is shaping up to be worse than nothing:

I'm wondering if there is any way feasible to instead of adding pseudo-private accounts to SS simply reconfigure how it's funded, so that payroll taxes could be cut in half, allowing people to simply take that money & do whatever with it -- invest, put it in the bank, burn it, whatever.

Alas, I have no idea how to find out if this could be done. We got any masochists out there willing to tackle this for shits & giggles?

[b-psycho]

Of course, I'd rather that payroll taxation were just ended completely, but politics doesn't move quick enough for that at the moment.

[Dynamist]

b-psycho: The trouble is many believe that people are owed by society a modest living no matter what they did with their earnings. They're not held responsible for a lifetime of choices. What matters is that people are taken care of, even if they squandered a fortune on the way to retirement.

Since it is a communal debt owed by society, let's offer those who don't or can't provide for themselves a communal solution: Federal Dormitories. You'll be warm and dry every night, dinner is at 5pm, lights out at 10. It is a reduction in monetary benefits, sure, but it would give the state even greater control over some people's lives, those who evidently were not qualified to choose well for themselves.

If we manage to stop imprisoning people so much, building the dorms would "preserve jobs" at CCA and Wackenhut. Same kind of buildings as prisons, but without locks and bars.

[b-psycho]

Yeah, people seem to want to be "kept" by the rest of society no matter what here.

Isn't it amazing how the Entitlement Mentality seems to grow so much stronger in rich countries where even the poor neighborhoods have cable TV? Someone needs to do a sociology study on that, write a book about it.

[M. Simon]

Is the Bush plan a move in the right direction or not?

Libertarians OTOH ask: does it perfectly fit my philosophy or not.

I can see the Bush plan leading in time to a more private SS system. When the tax and spend part of the plan delivers only 20% of retirement income it could slowly be phased out.

It will take 40 or 50 years for the Bush plan to lead to that result.

The alternative is?

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Bush has the vision thing down.

Many of the folks here do not.

Bush has a chance to get his plan enacted. President B. (Browne or Badnarik) has zero chance.

Guess why I'm a Republican not a Libertarian?

[Jesse Walker]

Is the Bush plan a move in the right direction or not?

Libertarians OTOH ask: does it perfectly fit my philosophy or not.

I realize that that's the cliche among anti-libertarian Republicans, but what the hell does it have to do with this? If Anrig's argument is correct, Bush's plan would be a move in the wrong direction. Or, to quote the blog post that you're responding to but apparently didn't bother to read, it "could expand, rather than contract, the size of the state."

I don't mind a halfway measure, and neither, I suspect, do 90% of the people who call themselves libertarians. It's the wrongway measures that bother me.

[thoreau]

I concur with Jesse. We could move in the right direction simply by increasing the tax advantages of contributing to an IRA (including payroll tax deductions), while using means tests to reduce the total amount of money paid out by the government.

But giving your $ to a gov't investment manage, so that he can invest it in the market? That strikes me as a very dangerous move. Not to mention that it is in no way a move toward smaller gov't.

[MayDay72]

But giving your $ to a gov't investment manage, so that he can invest it in the market? That strikes me as a very dangerous move. Not to mention that it is in no way a move toward smaller gov't. -thoreau

Well, I'd agree that shifting tax dollars from the current Social Security system into some sort of hybrid/mutant which embodies the worst traits of both government and the free market is something that both leftists and libertarians can agree on. Leftists because it creates "crony capitialism" and libertarians because such a system would create additional government control over the free market. Expansion of the state into civil society and the creation of government endorsed monopolies...I guess that they are really two sides of the same coin.

The problem is that there is not likely to be any serious public debate on this issue. Certainly not in Washington. And certainly not a conversation which encompasses that full breadth of this subject. There are some very interesting matters here regarding the relationship of individuals to both the state and civil society. And central to this debate is the big question as to what sort of system creates the most wealth and liberty for the greatest number of people.

Unfortunately the American public does not seem ready for this sort of debate. The size and scope of government is seen as force which stabilizes the "chaotic" forces of the market (I'd replace "chaotic" with "dynamic"). Therefore any discussion of limiting the role of government is seen as a proposal for additional chaos within the marketplace which might lead to greater inequality in the distribution of wealth.

As long as such a debate is seen a taboo, "kooky" or "extemist" we will be limited to choosing between the views that the current should be kept at all costs or that some sort of limited "reform" is needed (even if it does not address the core issues and therefore might not be a true "reform" at all).