Update II (1/6): Must-read post on slave reparations and taxes by Casey Lartigue.
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“Would liberals support Social Security reform if they thought of it as reparations for blacks?”
Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, asks a question I’d never thought of asking white liberals. Yet it seems so obvious. Liberals support “reparations” and any other idiotic idea complaining blacks come up with. I’ve always argued that blacks are receiving reparations: welfare, entitlements and all manner of skin color preferences.
As we all know, if the old baby boomers aren’t breaking us now, they will be very soon. President Bush is trying to help us out. Under his plan, we’d get to invest part of our wages instead of throwing it down the black hole that is the government. In fact, it is a conservative trait to advocate that people keep more of their earnings. It’s a liberal trait to advocate that government not only take more of your money but force you to give it to people who have less, whether they have a job or not.
Lowry offers a rationale for social security reform that I’ve heard before: blacks, especially black men, don’t live long enough to collect the money that is owed them by the government, so they, of all people, should support reform of the broken system:
There is a direct correlation between economic status and average life span. This means that blacks, who are disproportionately poor, partly for historic reasons, tend to have shorter life spans, especially black males. The average life expectancy of a black male is roughly 68.6. The retirement age of Social Security is set under current law to eventually rise to 67. You do the math — this cannot be a good deal.According to Social Security expert David John of the Heritage Foundation, one-fifth of white males die between the ages of 50 and 70. But one-third of black males die between those ages. If you die before you reach the age of 62, you have no chance of collecting benefits, and if you die shortly thereafter, you will not recoup the payroll taxes you paid into the system.
John ran the numbers for persons roughly age 20 to 25 living in the ZIP code for liberal New York Rep. Charlie Rangel’s district office. The average rate of return from Social Security for these young people will be negative 8 percent. If young blacks were being fleeced in this way by, say, “predatory lenders,” the likes of Rangel would scream racism and demand change. But if they are financially abused by a liberal sacred cow, the implicit message is: Don’t get uppity.
How white liberals have convinced most blacks that social security reform is “racist” and will hurt old people isn’t physics. I’ll keep it simple. As someone who used to be a liberal, it didn’t matter if a conservative was offering something better for me and my family. As long as I believed the person doing the offering was a racist, I didn’t want it and tried to convince others not to take it, either. Irrational? Darn right it is.
When I find the time, I’ll read up on the history of social security (Thanks a lot, FDR), it’s evolution and what reform would mean for me. I’m talking policy. Right now, I’m kind of ignorant. All I know is that I’d keep more of my salary. That’s good enough for me.
I want the power to use my own initiative, motivation and creativity in choosing how, when and where to invest the money I earn. But we live in an era where the government knows what’s best for us, right?
Attention Washington: Keep the criminals out of my neighborhood and away from me and family, protect us from terrorists and illegal aliens bankrupting the system, and I’ll be just fine. Jack part of my salary for various state duties, if you must, but let me and my brain come up with our retirement plan.
Get off my back and out of my pocket.
Update: A reader sends links. From the Heritage Foundation:
(FYI, the link text on the new blog will be the same size as the regular text.)
Update: Rob says: “Social Security Doesn’t Work.”
Chris says: “Personal Accounts Work.”
Have you written a post on social security reform? Send me the link.
Update III (1/10): Here’s something besides Williams or Rathergate. See JustOneMinute for the latest on social security reform.
