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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

Perry, Legislators Throw Away $500 Million Trying to Privatize Social Security

"The great minds of Texas," as the governor likes to call his special committee cronies, have tossed away more taxpayer dollars on an "innovative" plan that would privatize the Social Security Program. Too bad that, like many of their other plans, it was initiated by the poor judgment of special interests who salivated at the thought of a new resource for unlimited income.

The Bush administration's greed for profiteering, a.k.a. privatizing, Social Security, trickled on down to Bush-wannabe Governor Rick "39-percent" Perry, whose eyes must have glazed over thinking about all the money he and his wealthy campaign contributors could make via the use of our tax dollars.

According to an article in the 4/25/07 Austin-American Statesman:

Four years ago, Texas embarked on the nation's most ambitious plan to privatize enrollment in social services. It would establish call centers to take food stamp, welfare and Medicaid applications by phone, fax, Internet and mail, instead of just in person at state offices. It would use a new Web-based computer system designed to bring Texas into the Internet age.
Today, the project is in shambles. The state has canceled the call center contract with a group led by Accenture LLP and continues to do most of the enrollment work with state employees using the old computer system.

With Texans paying more and more in taxes, recently the state refused to make good on its promise to refund a $500 million tax surplus. In wondering why the state held onto those refunds, it now comes to light that one of the reasons may be the ongoing special interest power-plays and "innovative" ideas sponsored by the governor and legislators to cater to their campaign contributors.

As for privatizing Social Security: one of the problems inherent in the Social Security system is insufficient funding of the system to do the job adequately and also the governmental and bureaucratic politics that appear to dictate every its every cornerstone.

However, the Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security programs are a part of "big government" that conservatives like to pretend they hate. While the Bush administration sees no problem in its ongoing invasion into the everyday lives and activities of the American people, it wants to cut down dramatically the tax dollars paid into various social and economic programs that benefit the masses who need them. The Social Security Administration (SSA), along with the Veterans Administration (VA), now are two such targets for eradication as they continue to grow under government auspices.

Ideally, the Bush administration looks at the SSA as a private sector function — and why not? It is another ripe plum for an administration whose wealthy special interests rule and whose major insatiable objective is to acquire an endless stream of profits. Millions, perhaps billions, may be made by privatizing the SSA. Rightly so, advocacy groups are enraged and frightened by this overt hostile takeover by the current administration and its corporate special interests.
Dismantling and privatizing SSA is a big job, but the administration and the corporate sector are trying to sell the idea to the public.

The SSA is an integral lifeline for all low-income seniors and disabled and jobless Americans. The Bush administration, which has no problem providing "corporate welfare" to its own special interests, abhors the function and status of the SSA and views it as another form of mass social welfare. The attacks by the administration on the SSA and its benefits will continue. And while the administration-appointed heads of these programs go before committees and testify that Americans are good people and deserve their benefits, their Social Security Tax-paying citizens are waiting months for treatment at a facility or getting no treatment at all due to the ongoing cutbacks of tax funding, personnel, equipment and pharmaceuticals, and special interest power-plays.
Eliminating the SSA in favor of privatization is a major priority of the Bush administration. The government will stop at nothing to pursue ever-greater profiteering. The glitter of money trickles down to affect the common sense of Texas Gov. Perry and state legislators, who, "chomping at the bit," dove in head-first into a cataclysmic error in greedy judgment.

Once again, solving this problem hinges upon our nation’s respect for our own citizens being cast aside by a greedy government and corporate regime. American citizens with a conscience for doing the right thing, not just those who need the system, must pound down the doors of the Bush administration and demand that the SSA remain under the purview of government. To enable privatization of the SSA is to ensure that it becomes unaffordable to most of the Americans who would need it, much as the current health care insurance system is unaffordable for those Americans. It will be an endless battle to keep the SSA free of the pending corporate takeover.

Perhaps Texas unknowingly has struck the first blow for eliminating any further discussion on the privatization of Social Security./p>

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