So You Want to Privatize

Last week, former President George W. Bush emerged from his Texas mansion to declare that the biggest failure of his presidency was not privatizing Social Security. President Bush should take a good look around because he failed at a number of things, but failing to gut one of America's most effective programs was, in fact, a huge success for the American people. Nevertheless, Bush's dream of putting our retirement benefits into the reckless hands of Wall Street hasn't died, and Republicans have made it clear that privatizing Social Security and Medicare is among their top priorities.

Republicans aren't resurrecting Bush's plan verbatim; instead, they've dressed up Bush's privatization policies in new clothing, hoping the American people simply won't notice. If Republicans take control of the House next week, self-described Republican "young gun" Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is poised to take over the Budget Committee in the next Congress. Ryan recently made his plan for privatization evident when he released his "Roadmap for America's Future" which, among other senseless policies, includes plans to privatize Social Security and to turn Medicare into a voucher system in which seniors would be forced to fend for themselves on the private insurance market. The vouchers wouldn't keep pace with health care costs, leaving millions of older Americans vulnerable to having no health coverage at all. Yet, despite its dismantling of America's most fundamental safety net, nearly 80 percent of House Republicans voted in favor of Ryan's Medicare plan. Republicans may not be campaigning on privatizing these popular programs, but it's clear they're committed to restarting the failed efforts of the Bush Administration to destroy them.

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