This Week:

Quote of the Week

George W. Bush and His "Principles"

Not the Person, But the Type of Person

Greetings,

Two long pieces this week. Sorry. I usually try to have several shorter ones, to accommodate the short attention spans of the Television Age. But they are interesting, and I trust readers of the Notes to stick with me when there are important points to be made.

However, they are so long that I can't say much in the editor's note. That's the price you pay, I guess. OK, then, see you next week,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

From the Business Section of the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) of August 21, reporting on a General Mills program called "Box Tops for Education," in which elementary school kids collect box tops from Trix, Kix, and Cocoa Puffs, which their school can then redeem to buy such things as books, pencils, and notebooks:

"The growth of the General Mills program reflects a desire by companies to address Americans' concerns about education and at the same time nurture brand loyalty among consumers."

George W. Bush and His "Principles"

On May 2, "President" Bush announced establishment of a bipartisan, 16-member Commission "to study and report … specific recommendations to preserve Social Security for seniors while building wealth for younger Americans." I'll say a little more about this "President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security" in the coming weeks, probably when they issue their final report sometime toward the end of the year.

This week I'd like to take a look at the six "guiding principles" that Mr. Bush gave the Commission to use as they do their work, which they describe as attempting to "modernize and restore fiscal soundness to Social Security." (Note the assumptions that Social Security is not "modern" and not "fiscally sound." Pure propaganda, each one.)

Stating something as a "principle" is to say that this is a fundamental guide that must be met in order to be consistent with what one values. Last week I linked my own principles for reforming Social Security to my own core values. Below I list the President's "Six Guiding Principles" for "strengthening" (that is, weakening) the U.S. system of Social Security. After each principle, I will speculate as to what must be valued in each case.

"Guiding Principles" Numbers 1 through 6

Principle #1: "Modernization must not change Social Security benefits for retirees or near-retirees." No argument here, from anybody. Since current projections show Social Security to be fully sound until the year 2038 with no changes to the system whatsoever, there is no threat to any benefits for any "retirees or near-retirees," except the few that may live to be older than 95. And even those oldsters would receive full benefits if Congress were willing to make very minor adjustments to the program. The fact that this is stated as a "principle" for "strengthening" Social Security reflects a propaganda intent, since it has nothing to do with the supposed task at hand.

Principle # 2: "The entire Social Security surplus must be dedicated only to Social Security." The entire surplus IS dedicated only to Social Security under current law. Again, stating this as a "principle" cannot be explained by reference to the task at hand.

Principle # 3: "Social Security payroll taxes must not be increased." This can only be understood as a "principle" separate from Social Security. If words mean anything, then Social Security must value "security." If higher taxes are required to provide that security, then the need for security should override the desire for lower taxes, if "strengthening Social Security" is your overall goal. If it does not, then the "principle" of "no new taxes" must be more important than providing a secure income to our citizens.

Principle # 4: "The government must not invest Social Security funds in the stock market." This obscure "principle" refers to a liberal proposal that Free Marketeers really hate. Some liberals agree that Social Security could make more money by investing the Trust Fund in the stock market (a dubious proposal, actually), but they think the ups and downs of the market are too risky for individuals to bear. So they have proposed that government could invest the aggregate SS Trust Fund into the stock market and distribute the returns proportionally to all account holders. This proposal interferes with two very important things driving the push to privatize, or individualize, the SS system. One is an ideological opposition to any social, or public, control of anything. That is, a dogmatic adherence to extreme individualism. The second is a desire to deliver more than 100 million individual accounts, and the associated fees for managing them, into the hands of Wall Street. That is, unbelievable profits for Free Marketeers. The aggregate investment proposal would defeat both of these purposes, so its avoidance naturally becomes a "guiding principle" of the Bush Commission.

Principle # 5: "Modernization must preserve Social Security's disability and survivors insurance programs." See Principle #1 above. (More on this next week.)

Principle # 6: "Modernization must include individually controlled, voluntary personal retirement accounts, which will augment Social Security." OK, now we get to the heart of the matter.Principle # 6 is not a "principle" in any sense of the word, but rather is a specific tactic in service of a greater principle, which cannot be explicitly stated by the Free Marketeers for reasons about which we can only speculate. The greater—indeed, overriding—principle here is that there must be no interference with the "right" of individuals to accumulate and control as much wealth as possible. Since Social Security does limit this "right" by mandating a contribution from each citizen in the service of providing income security for all citizens, then the program that we call "Social Security" must, IN PRINCIPLE, be destroyed (and replaced with a system of individual, privately-held accounts.)

The problems with individual accounts are so numerous that I will not even attempt to go into the details here. Instead, next week in the Notes I will refer readers to several websites that go into far more detail on this than Nygaard Notes can spare. For now, I will simply state the twin principles involved, which readers may wish to bear in mind whenever you hear a public official mention Social Security "reform."

1. Social Security is "social" because each citizen pays in to protect all citizens. A system of individual accounts would not be social. It would be entirely possible in a system of privately-owned accounts, in fact it would be almost guaranteed, for some citizens to be protected while others were not.

2. Social Security exists to provide security against loss of income from work. A system of individual accounts would have no guarantees, so would not be secure.

So, a system of individual accounts, which the President's commission has been ordered to recommend, would not be social, and it would not be secure. This is why I say that the "President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security" has as its real job the weakening of Social Security.

Not the Person, But the Type of Person

Last week I talked about the world-famous Nygaard Notes "Quote" of the Week (QOTW), and explained two out of the three types of quotations that achieve this distinction. The first one was the "Stand-Alone Quotation," those pithy ones that can be understood on the face of them, with or without any context. You could put these on a poster.

I also mentioned the "Ironic Quotation," in which the speaker inadvertently or unconsciously reveals an important truth when trying to communicate something entirely different, often an important lie.

I then referred to a third type of quotation, which I said that I included in the Notes in order to reinforce a strange and important message. In order to illustrate just what that message is, I will use a recent "Quote" of the Week from Mike Hatch.

The quotation appeared in NN#118, and came from the mouth of Minnesota State Attorney General Mike Hatch, speaking about (as I put it) "Allina Health Care and, presumably, the people of Minnesota." He had said, "We all have one goal in mind, and that is good health care for people and more efficient premiums." I commented that Hatch's "one goal" appears to be "two goals" and that it was unclear what he meant by "more efficient premiums."

A long-time reader took exception to this, reminding me that I am a big proponent of putting things in context. "The problem with quotes is that there is no context provided," he said. Fair enough; he's right.

The reader went on to say that "Having followed Hatch's actions against Allina, I think it is clear that "efficient premiums" means premiums that pay for actual health care rather than for exorbitant administrative costs masquerading as program costs." Well, it wasn't clear to me and, since my guess at the meaning was different, I think my point stands.

But it was the final comment from this faithful reader that illustrates exactly why I chose this quote as a "Quote" of the Week. The reader said, "Hatch is one of the best officials we have in this state. I hope you won't take pot shots at him by quoting him out of context and misconstruing the meaning." What I had said—and what I think the reader interpreted as a "pot shot"—was this: "[Mr. Hatch] apparently believes that ‘more efficient premiums' are as important to Minnesotans as is good health care."

Now, bear in mind that this quotation did not come from a private conversation with Mr. Hatch. He was well aware that he was speaking to the media, and thus to the public.

This quotation is, I think, a perfect example of the third type of quotation that becomes a QOTW, and it is one for which I do not have a name as of yet. This is my "strange and important message," and I chose not to state it explicitly because it is so important and so unfamiliar to most people that I think it is more effective to suggest it through allegory and the subtle introduction of cognitive dissonance, as I often do. But I will take this opportunity to make it explicit here.

Required Speech, Forbidden Speech

It is extremely rare for a prominent public official to state that our society should have a goal of "good health care for all," without qualifying it in some way, either outright or by implication. Some of the more common qualifiers to the statement that "Every person has a right to good health care..." are "...if it doesn't raise taxes too much," or "...if it doesn't reduce the income of doctors and health company executives," or "...if it doesn't affect rich people's unlimited access to exceptional care." It's unusual to hear a public official attach these qualifiers as boldly as I just did, but they're usually not that hard to pick up, as in the case of the Hatch quotation.

That Mike Hatch himself uttered these words—that is, Mike Hatch the individual person—is less important than the fact that a person like Mike Hatch uttered these words. It would be unremarkable to me for an individualistic Free Marketeer like Jesse Ventura, or George W., or Orrin Hatch to elevate fiscal "efficiency" to the same status as good health care for our citizens. But I hope it is remarkable to many people when a liberal Democrat like Mr. Hatch qualifies the goal of good health care in this way.

My point is that a person like Mike Hatch will say something like this not because he is a cold-hearted Free Marketeer, but because he is a public official, and public officials in today's United States are required to say things like this.

There are social forces at work in the United States (and elsewhere) that, in effect, make it almost impossible for a prominent public official to promote policies or programs that would unambiguously place the public welfare above the capitalist values of profit and competition. This is why I can say that I am not "picking on" Mr. Hatch even though it is his words I am quoting. In fact, this quotation was selected to be a NN QOTW precisely because Mr. Hatch is one of our best public officials. The fact that this man feels constrained to qualify "our" goal of "good health care for people" shows, I think, how powerful are the social forces acting upon us all.

As I reported a long time ago back in NN #113 ("Health Care Scandal In Context") Mr. Hatch is has been using his office to attempt to get Allina's administrative costs down from the astronomical 47% of revenues that his office believes them to be, to a more "efficient" 10 or 12 percent of revenues, which is the industry average. As I pointed out at the time, a publicly-run national health care system would spend only about 1% of revenues on administration. And it would provide health care to everyone.

If Mr. Hatch believes that our society's twin goals are really "good health care" and "more efficient premiums," then he should stop wasting his time badgering the HMOs and start calling for us to have what almost every other industrial country in the world has: a national health plan that covers all of its citizens. Or, he could lobby for the state-level equivalent. Remember that the Canadian system of national health care was started when a single province went ahead with a universal plan. Once it was in place it was so wildly popular that the rest of the nation was forced to follow suit. Of course, if Mr. Hatch began to do this, he would not be a public official for long.

Has Mr. Hatch internalized the idea that we can't "afford" to make good health care a right guaranteed to all? That is, does he believe it? Or is his failure to state such a thing merely a political calculation, shrewdly made in the light of his assessment of the current political climate? It's impossible to say, but it's not that important. What is important is that he couldn't say it. And despite the fact that surveys show a large majority of Americans agreeing that "Government should provide quality medical coverage to all adults," essentially none of our political "leaders" can, or will, say it. Until we challenge and change the social forces that shape our society. Nygaard Notes is a small part of that challenge.