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Tuesday, August 18th, 2015

Republicans Against Retirement

Author:     Paul Krugman
Source:     The New York Times
Publication Date:     AUG. 17, 2015
 Link: Republicans Against Retirement
Stephan:   I have chosen to run this essay not only because it describes the threat to the social program upon which millions of people depend, which the Republican party would like to eliminate for ideological reasons, but also because it reveals the truth the corporate media will not address. The Republican Party is funded principally by 130 families — that's right just 130 families — and the party has, not surprisingly, shaped itself to serve their interests. How is it possible that a person over 65 could vote for a party that undercut their fundamental security?  Yet millions do, and that reality says a great deal about American democracy.
Paul Krugman Nobel Laureate Economist and Op-Ed Columnist Credit: Twitter.com

Paul Krugman
Nobel Laureate Economist and Op-Ed Columnist
Credit: Twitter.com

Something strange is happening in the Republican primary — something strange, that is, besides the Trump phenomenon. For some reason, just about all the leading candidates other than The Donald have taken a deeply unpopular position, a known political loser, on a major domestic policy issue. And it’s interesting to ask why.

The issue in question is the future of Social Security, which turned 80 last week. The retirement program is, of course, both extremely popular and a long-term target of conservatives, who want to kill it precisely because its popularity helps legitimize government action in general. As the right-wing activist Stephen Moore (now chief economist of the Heritage Foundation) once declared, Social Security is “the soft underbelly of the welfare state”; “jab your spear through that” and you can undermine the whole thing.

But that was a decade ago, during former President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the […]

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