A Letter to George W.
April 10Dear President Bush: What are you scared of? Recently, three people were thrown out of a Colorado event at which you "educated" the attendees about your plan to privatize Social Security. When they called the Secret Service to inquire as to the reason for their dismissal, they were told that the Secret Service had nothing to do with it, that it was Republican Party staffers dressed as Secret Service officers, and that they had identified the three as a threat because their car had a bumper sticker that said "No More Blood For Oil." A month ago, before a similar event in Fargo, North Dakota, a list of 40 people who were not to be allowed to attend was made public. The list did not include suspected terrorists, only liberals (though you might think they are the same). What is the reason for this very possibly illegal behavior? Why are you barring taxpayers from attending events that they themselves help to fund? Why are you afraid of viewpoints that differ from you own? Are you scared that someone might ask you why you spent the money in the Social Security trust fund on tax cuts for the wealthy? You would probably answer that these tax cuts have helped the economy grow out of a recession, but if that is true, why has the job market grown by only 0.3 percent in the four years since the beginning of the recession? Following the six previous recessions in American history, job growth was between 4.3 percent and 10.2 percent four years after the start of the economic downturn. In addition, if our Social Security money is better spent as handouts to the rich, why has private sector job growth since March 2001 actually been negative, and why have average real wages shrunk for the past year? Perhaps you are afraid that you will have to explain what you meant when you said, in reference to the revenue generated from the payroll tax and put into the Social Security trust fund, "there is no trust fund - just IOUs." Do you think people might want to know if you are suggesting that the government will default on its debt? Maybe you are scared that you will be asked to explain how you can base your assumptions about the future solvency of Social Security on pessimistic economic forecasts, while basing your optimistic views about the performance of private accounts over the same period on a very bullish stock market. Or maybe you think you will be asked what a PE ratio is, and why economists do not expect it to rise higher than it is in the near future. This would be a real pickle, because I suspect you would start your answer by talking about what the ratio was of the times you were in gym class to the times that you skipped it to get high behind the art building. Are you afraid that you might be asked why you are spending so much time and taxpayer money advancing a plan that will not actually help make Social Security solvent? You have admitted that your plan, whether you call it privatization or personalization, will not solve the problems that Social Security faces over the next 50 years. But at the same time, you are engaged in a 60 day tour of America trying to convince people to support your plan. Why are you not spending your time and our money actually trying to fix the problem? Maybe you are scared that someone will ask you how you plan to pay for the transition to private accounts. Because then the follow-up question could be what you think will happen when the national debt grows so large as a result of your plan that foreign governments get tired of holding ever depreciating American dollars and decide to switch their currency of choice to the Euro. Are you afraid that if one of these dissenters snuck into one of your events, you might be asked why you keep on telling Democrats you want them to come to the table to talk about Social Security, but you will not allow people who disagree with you to engage you in conversation about privatization? Are you really scared that someone would ask you what your true motivation is in undermining the very nature of the Social Security system? I bet you are just afraid of questions whose answers you have not practiced in front of Laura, Karl and a mirror. Maybe you think people would grow tired of hearing you stutter a bit and then say "On Sept. 11, we were attacked" in a whiny, high pitched voice. If this is the case, let me assure you Mr. President, people will not get tired of hearing that. Fifty-one percent of American voters love you when, for lack of anything intelligent to say, you remind them of how scared and angry they were four years ago. You were reelected largely because you found the perfect non sequitur and used it without shame. There is no reason why you should not be able to convince people that national security now depends on destroying Social Security. So Mr. President, I urge you to allow difficult questions to be asked in your Social Security events. Then you can put on your usual unmatched display of not answering them. These are the questions of a concerned citizen.Steven Ward is a junior majoring in International Relations.
