How the GOP Could Win Its Long War Against Social Security
Republicans have wanted to end Social Security as we know it since its inception. They may finally get their chance.
That somewhat Zen-like pronouncement came from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) during a recent video discussion of Social Security with Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee. Kelly warned that Republicans would “all get thrown out of office [if] we told the truth” about their party’s plans for Social Security, calling it “political suicide.”
Social Security is “the third rail Republicans can’t stop touching,” in the words of a Politico headline. “Social Security and Medicare are wildly popular,” Politico notes. “So why do GOP Senate candidates keep talking about privatizing them?” But the Republican Party has been waging war on Social Security since its inception. This war, sometimes open and sometimes covert, may soon end in victory.
It began as Congress was debating the Social Security Act of 1935. Republicans attacked the program with rhetoric as extreme as that of today’s right. Rep. James W. Wadsworth (R-NY), for example, said the bill would create “a power so vast, so powerful as to threaten the integrity of our institutions and to pull the pillars of the temple down upon the heads of our descendants.” Republican Daniel Reed of New York said, “The lash of the dictator will be felt.”
As for Politico’s question: Why? Why would Republicans pursue such a major and unpopular change in the social contract? Why would they want to cut or privatize Social Security? Because they’ve wanted to do it for 87 years. Because, despite its unpopularity, their ideology and self-interest demand it. And because, as Republican judges, governors, and presidents have demonstrated, the party has no interest in preserving democratic norms.
The GOP disregard for democracy has a pretty long history, too. In 2003, well before the rise of Trump, historian Gould wrote that many Republicans seek “complete electoral dominance,” motivated by “the ingrained Republican sense of entitlement as the natural governing party.” Gould, a neutral enough figure to have been consulted by Karl Rove in the 2000 election, questioned “whether modern Republicans really believe in the two-party system as a core principle of politics.”
That question has been settled in recent years. If Republicans retake Congress, their long war on Social Security seems likely to end in victory.
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Republicans have wanted to end Social Security as we know it since its inception. They may finally get their chance.
prospect.org