SOCIAL SECURITY: The Attempt To Kill It

In 1983, the same year that the recommendations of the Greenspan Commission on Social Security Reform were enacted into law, allegedly €œfixing€ the long term Social Security solvency problem, members of the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation drew up a long-term plan for privatizing Social Security. They published their plan, entitled €œAchieving A Leninist Strategy€ in the Fall 1983 issue of Cato Journal. This plan served as the foundation upon which a powerful movement to destroy the current Social Security system, and replace it with private accounts, was built over the years.
The goal was to have a privatization plan waiting in the wings when the next Social Security crisis came along. Apparently the enemies of Social Security became impatient waiting for a true crisis to come and convinced President Bush to create an artificial crisis in the minds of the American public. Bush has done a good job of casting doubts on the long-term solvency of Social Security as part of the plan to privatize the program.
The real crisis is not about Social Security. The real crisis is a crisis of fraud and credibility with the United States government. A plot to destroy Social Security that was initially created by people at the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, now includes the participation of the President of the United States, many members of Congress, and many other conservative organizations.
My previous book, The Looting of Social Security: How The Government Is Draining America€s Retirement Account (Carroll & Graf, 2004) covers the details of what happened to the Social Security surplus money that is supposed to be in the trust fund. This book picks up where that book left off. It exposes the 22-year old plot to circumvent the American democratic process and build a strategy to dismantle the current Social Security system and replace it with private accounts, despite the fact that the majority of Americans support the current system.