February 13, 2007

Martha Burk is a political psychologist and director of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations.

God, it’s like Freddy Krueger, the monster from Nightmare on Elm Street . George W. Bush’s proposal to privatize Social Security b-a-a-a-ck again, refusing to die. It’s right there front and center in the new budget on the White House website. Ever delusional and ever loyal to Wall Street, George W. proposes diverting some payroll taxes to private accounts. Give the man credit for stubborn. He must have slept through the debate in 2005, when his plan was soundly trounced in the court of public opinion and even his own party, solidly in the majority, couldn’t muster support.

OK, George, let’s through this one more time. Privatizing Social Security is a nightmare of an idea. It is a particularly bad idea for older women, who depend on the system more than men. Social Security is women’s main retirement. Without it, an astonishing 59.2 percent would live in poverty in their old age. That’s because women earn less throughout their lives, get a big fat zero added to their Social Security tally for every year they spend out of the workforce taking care of kids or elderly parents and have lower and fewer private pensions to fall back on when retirement day comes.

The White House rhetoric on privatizing Social Security reads like the title of one of those get-rich-quick books like Success In The Stock Market In Two Minutes A Day . We’re all smarter than the professionals, we’re all going to make the wisest decisions about where to invest, and we’re all going to retire rich. This year’s pitch seems particularly aimed at young people. But it doesn’t address what happens if grandma’s investments go the way of Enron. Are the kids willing or able to write a check every month to cover the shortfall?

Under privatization, widows and divorced women would probably lose the most. Social Security now protects both groups with guaranteed benefits based on spousal earnings, even if they tended home and hearth while hubby went out to work. (Ten years of marriage are required for divorced spouse benefits; a widow continues to draw her husband’s benefit.) You can’t lose or outlive these payouts. But the White House is not talking about who, exactly, would own a privatized retirement account invested in the stock market. Is it something to be fought over in a divorce, like the family dog or the television set? Could a husband die and leave the account to someone other than his wife?

Women are also the majority of caretakers when a spouse dies and leaves young children, who receive Social Security checks until they reach eighteen. Many single parent families couldn’t make it without this feature, but the Bush budget doesn’t tell us what would happen to survivor and disability benefits in a privatized system.

Meanwhile, on the saner side of Capitol Hill, women are talking about some real changes to Social Security that would strengthen retirement. Representative Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., is poised to introduce a bill to reduce the qualifying marriage period for drawing divorced spousal benefits to five years, reflecting today’s marital reality. National women’s groups are lining up behind her. While we’re at it, we should add a caregiver credit for years spent at home with small children, and possibly increase the credit if each spouse takes a turn. The Republicans are big family values, so this one ought to be a no-brainer for them.

One last message for W: The stock market didn’t bring us a national retirement system with guarantees we can’t outlive, payments that are indexed to inflation and benefits that help the middle and lower earners more than the rich. That came to us courtesy of a forward-looking government that takes less than one percent of the funds collected to administer the largest benefit program in America.

I’ll take it over Freddy Krueger and the nightmare anytime.