Sometimes conservatives are right. There is some merit to their argument that safety nets create dependency by people who might otherwise be self-sufficient if they were so compelled and strove to so be.
The Republican plan of having Social Security remain as is for those who are 55 years or older may be all right if Social Security for those younger than 55 years was phased out so that younger people become increasingly more responsible for more of their retirement needs.
For example, a person who is 54 years of age would receive at 65 years of age 96% of expected Social Security and Medical Care coverage and would pay 96% of expected Social Security taxes. That person will have 11 years to save up enough money to make up the differences in benefits. They could buy some kind of supplementary insurance with the savings, save it, or invest it..
A person who is 52 would receive 92% of expected benefits from SS and MC. SS taxes would be 92% of expected cost. The person 3 years longer (13 years) to prepare for reduced benefits.
A person who is 50 would receive 88% in benefits, pay 88% less in cost and have 5 years longer (11 years) to save for retirement costs.
A person who is 48 would receive 84%, pay 84% and have 7 years longer to save (17 years).
Finally, a person who start work at age 22 would pay for 46% of coverage, pay 46% of the cost, and have 47 years to save for retirement.
This scheme has possibilities if people save, if they know how, where, how much and when to save and if they can anticipate or determine what their retirement needs would be in the future.
For wealthy people--many of whom are among those most critical of people who need SS and MC--the uncertainty of those needs is not a problem because most of them have inherited wealth. Or as Rev. Al Sharpton recently put it: These are people who "were born on third base, and are acting like they hit a triple."
But for those who must fit retirement plans into the need to live in the present on modest incomes, this is a problem. How much health and life insurance can a family afford? How well will children be clothes and fed? In what kinds of homes and neighborhoods will the family live? What colleges and universities can the children attend? How many and what kinds of family vacations will there be? Must both spouses work?
These are just some of the decisions that would affect the kinds of retirements for which people can reasonably prepare. This can be done. There are people who are doing it. But people must have plans for doing it successfully. High school economics classes could be places where students learn how to make such plans.
But there seems to be a refusal by most conservatives to realize that not all people have the same financial skills or interests. They don't have the same families, parents, spouses, colleagues, associations through organizations, or teachers that can influence their skills, interests and commitments. For these people a mandatory system of retirement planning is necessary. Social Security and Medicare both anticipates and addresses those needs.
Does Social Security tend to make people less independent in providing for their own retirement? For some people that is true. For most people, the best we can say is "we don't know." But enabling people to prepare for their own retirement in a mutual effort with others still seems like a reasonable approach to address that uncertainty. People pay into pension plans or buy insurance: to address periods of need which may occur at unexpected times and during periods of family uncertainty--like the present. Social Security is multiple insurance.
Conservative are right, however, in suggesting that our welfare system tend to promote and encourage dependency by people who have the abilities and talents not only to take care of themselves but also to make significant contributions to our economic, social and political systems.
But how can that talent be harnessed? And how can we identify those who have the potential to become independent, contributing members of society, and distinguish them from those who likely will need our help? For some people, taking care of the most vulnerable is more economical--and humane--than trying to make everyone financially independent and having them suffer the consequences if they aren't. Safety nets are important.
Unfortunately, too many conservatives have acquired an unChristian-like indifference about those who come upon hard times. They believe that the conditions of the less fortunate are always their fault, and never the fault of the circumstances which both generate and perpetuate their conditions. Poor schools and poor teachers, for example, contribute to poor performance as adults, whereas
having the best schools and teachers contribute to success. A country, therefore, must be guided by a blend of conservative and liberal ideas because its people will always be a blend of those who need help and those who don't.
Liberals--and perhaps most conservatives--believe we must prepare those who are most able to be independent, and care enough to help those who are less able so they can experience a quality of life that at least satisfies their desires and basic needs. Most poor people don't need much to be happy, and those who are not happy with their conditions usually find ways to overcome them. Many of our most successful people emerged from very humble circumstances.
Lee Hamilton states it in a recent News column that the American people "don't want big government or small government, but smart government. They want our political leaders to set ideological purity aside, and just get things done." For everyone, I might add. Voters get another chance in 2012 to get it right.
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