Social Security's not for investing

While getting ready to tally up the media's "private account" watch for the day, I stumbled up this op-ed piece in the Palm Beach Post by Tom Blackburn. He closes:

Now, about the "return on investment" in Social Security. Write this on the blackboard: It's not an investment plan. It's not an investment plan. It's not an investment plan.

It's a social safety net. The people who do worst with it are the ones who drop dead from a heart attack at their retirement party before they collect the first dollar. It doesn't matter what color they are. They get no personal gain. But they do get to live in a society where old age isn't instant poverty, where working-age people are not the sole support of both their children and their aged parents and where people who outlive their savings don't simply lie down in a ditch to die. They've paid for the privilege of living in a civilization even if it doesn't give them an impressive bank account to impress their relatives when they die.

To sell the gamble of shifting money into individual accounts, Mr. Bush has tried fear — Social Security will run out of money before you can get what you're entitled to. He has tried greed — personal accounts will give you pie in the sky. Last week, he shamelessly played the race card. He is using every emotional appeal in the pitchman's book to stampede the public and Congress into buying what he wants to do before he says what he wants to do.

He sold his tax cuts and was surprised by deficits. He sold his war and was surprised by the human and material costs of occupation. Now he is selling his Social Security program. This time, only a twice-burned bumpkin would settle for skipping over the details before the vote.

Well put.