The economic case for social security reform is trivially easy to make: compound interest beats no interest at all. And we have to confess that it’s hard to imagine Harry Reid’s world, as conveyed to us via David Brooks:

Gone is the day when President Clinton could propose another plan diverting 15 percent of Social Security reserves into the stock market. Now the Democratic Party’s tone is much more populist and even antibusiness. Harry Reid has begun his tenure as Senate minority leader by doing his best imitation of Huey Long: “They are trying to destroy Social Security by giving this money to the fat cats on Wall Street, and I think it’s wrong!”

What you hear these days is not liberalism. It’s conspiracyism. It’s the belief that the Bushite corporate cabal is going to do to domestic programs what the Bushite neocon cabal did in the realm of foreign affairs. It’s the belief in malevolent and shadowy forces that will grab everything for their own greedy ends. This is Michael Moore-ism applied to domestic affairs, and it will leave the Democrats only deeper in the hole.

What is Reid smoking? Probably Brooks is right, and these people don’t have a clue about the history of American prosperity. That’s pretty woefully, and willfully ignorant, but the esteemed ex-editor of the New York Times, Howell Raines, said pretty much the same thing about American capitalism.

Let them keep saying it, these dinosaurs. It will help Republicans get a solid and sustainable majority among the younger elements of American society. Social security won’t be around for them as things stand now, so they know the Democrats are lying to them. They know the DMV is awful and that Apple is cool; which stock would you want to own? You can’t scare people who are the richest on the planet with prophecies of capitalist doom and government salvation — these folks have lived through their own IRA’s and 401(k)’s over the last five years: they know the score.

So keep it up, Democrats; it’s another big loser issue for you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 11th, 2004 at 7:24 am and is filed under General, MSM, New Media, Red Shift. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.