White House Campaign to Privatize Social Security Based on Phony Crisis

Interview with economist John Miller, conducted by Scott Harris

As President Bush began his second term in office, he made clear that among his top priorities will be the overhaul of the nation's Social Security retirement system. The Bush administration maintains that Social Security is headed for financial disaster unless Congress adopts a scheme that would partially privatize the popular program launched by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

But most economists agree that the administration's forecast of catastrophic failure for Social Security are deliberately misleading. If nothing is done to change the current system, Social Security, by varying estimates, will be solvent until 2042 or 2052. Even if nothing else was done to shore up the system and the surplus were to be exhausted, Social Security would still be able to pay retirees 70% of promised benefits. Critics of the Bush plan point out that privatizing the current system will force the government to borrow at least $2 trillion and place retirees benefits into an uncertain stock market where brokerage fees will eat into any gains made from investments.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with John Miller professor of economics at Wheaton College and a member of the Dollars and Sense collective. Professor Miller takes a critical look at the Bush administration campaign to privatize Social Security and the experience of other nations that have undertaken similar conversions.

Read more about Social Security in the pages of Dollars and Sense magazine or online at www.dollarsandsense.org

Related links:

Contact United for A Fair Economy at (617) 423-2148 or www.faireconomy.org

Contact the Economic Policy Institute at (202) 775-8810 or www.epinet.org

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