"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Sunday, December 04, 2005

THE NEW DEAL AND THE GREAT SOCIETY WERE ABJECT FAILURES

The two greatest efforts at social engineering the Left has ever accomplished FAILED to achieve the goals they set out for themselves, and in fact made things worse:
(a) Unemployment was HIGHER in 1940 than in 1932; (b) Much of the New Deal was properly held to be unconstitutional; (c) The Great Society instituted welfare which hurt the underclass and wasn't undone until 1995; (Moynihan saw this in the 1970's!).
Even Social Security is an ABJECT FAILURE, amounting to a HUGE transfer of money from the working poor to the federal government and the rich:
(1) The payroll tax is the last regressive tax on the books - the lone federal tax poor peole pay;

(2) poor people die younger and collect less than rich people who live longer;

(3) if union-workers had put their pensions into IRA's and 401ks' instead of union funds (which were abused by many corrupt union leaders and by corrupt corporations), and if they weren't put into funds managed by the corporation for which they worked - (like ENRON or GM, for example), then their retirement benefits could not EVER have been threatened, AND they'd have had MORE money to retire on. IN OTHER WORDS: the workers got screwed by being locked into GROUP PLANS.
WHAT'S THE LESSON? "Groupism" - socialism - always fails. It is ALWAYS better to foster strong individualism than to foster membership in a group or class which is after all merely DEPENDENCY. And often dependnecy without adequate check'n balances.

That's why PRIVATIZING Social Security is actually mostly a HUGE BENEFIT TO THE POOR. The rich already have private retirement accounts; only the poor don't. And Social Secuirty is not transferable to the next generation. After payng into the account all her life, a poor working-woman dies after collecting a mere tiny sliver of what she put in, and her kids GET NOTHING. The state keeps the difference - for the state's profligate spending or to handout to rich people as Social Security stipends because the rich live longer. AND YET THE RICH DON'T NEED THE MONEY AS MUCH AS THE POOR DO!

The same is true when it comes to medical insurance: we should make sure eveyone has a PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL plan, not create a bigger "groupist" plan. We can do this with Medical Insurance Accounts - and give grants to poor people who cannot afford to buy one alone - (but who can put in SOMETHING). Then, after their account reaches a certain level, they are self-sustaining. The amounts which came from the state would go back to the state on the death of the accoiunt holder; the interest would go to their heirs - and this would also help WIPE OUT POVERTY.

The Left's defense of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid actually is BAD FOR POOR PEOPLE. Privatization and INDIVIDUALIZATION of pensions and health insurance for poor people would be the BEST POSSIBLE SOLUTION FOR POOR PEOPLE!

Once again, it seems the Left defends a STATUS QUO which is bad. No surprise here: The ALWAYS DO.

3 comments:

jhbowden said...

I agree with the general conclusion about social security here, though the argument could be cleaned up a bit.

If social security was funded in a graduated, progressive manner, it still wouldn't make the policy desirable. I'm not certain how mentioning social security's regressive nature is relevant to our argument.

Moreover, the left likes to frame political discussions in terms of the "rich" and the "poor," as if they were fixed classes of people. They're not. For instance, students who show up in poverty statistics often end up being well-paid professionals. But your bigger idea about not putting restraints on social mobility appears to be sound.

Reliapundit said...

quite right jason, in your astute comments.

i only offer the regressib=veness of ss to counter the left.

the larger morew inmportant aspect is the emphasis on INDIVIDUALISM and individualist-oriented policies as opposed to GROUPIST/socialist responses.
which have heretofore faiuled abjectly to achieve what they intended to achieve.

i think the right/individualists can use this approach to gain the necessary political capital (and diminish the capital of the Left) needed to enact individualist policies.

Anonymous said...

Jason H. Bowden is a pretentious idiot that doesn't know what he's talking about. He claims to be scientific, but all he is capable of doing is stuttering out half ass opinions, and say's nothing to back them up.