Greens Protest Obama Administration's "Privatization of Public Services and Resources"

A press release from the Green Party:

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Obama Administration's current plans to roll back Social Security and mortgage off all public housing amount to privatization schemes to dismantle public services, said Green Party candidates and leaders.

"President Obama is trying to accomplish what Republicans have long dreamed about -- privatizing public services and resources," said Rick Staggenborg, MD, Oregon Pacific Green Party candidate for the US Senate (http://staggenborgforussenate.org). (Dr. Staggenborg is founder of Soldiers For Peace International and a member of the Alliance For Democracy National Council.)

President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is expected to recommend cutting Social Security for future retirees, and the president himself has said "everything has to be on the table." The commission is stacked with conservatives hostile to Social Security.

As William Greider noted in The Nation, "The Republican co-chair, former Senator Alan Simpson, is especially nasty; he likes to get laughs by ridiculing wheezy old folks. Democratic co-chair Erskine Bowles and staff director Bruce Reed secretly negotiated a partial privatization of Social Security with Newt Gingrich back when they served in the Clinton White House..." (May 21, 2010, http://www.thenation.com/article/whacking-old-folks).

Greens dispute the Wall Street propaganda that Social Security's cost has expanded the deficit and thus requires cuts. In fact, Social Security's huge surplus of $2.5 trillion will grow to $4.3 trillion by 2023 and can cover all benefits until 2040. Any shortfalls can easily be reversed through a modest raise in the cap on Social Security contributions from the wealthy.

"Cutting Social Security will force more people to invest in the volatile Wall Street casino, which would create billions more in profits for financial firms but wipe out the savings of millions of Americans," said Alfred Molison, Texas Green candidate for Houston City Council (http://votealfred.com). "Fiscal conservatives on Capitol Hill and financial industry lobbyists have long sought to kill Social Security, a program that has saved millions from destitution. They know that Social Security has been both solvent and popular, so they're using concerns about the deficit, rants about big government, and legitimate fears about the recent economic meltdown to persuade the public to accept dangerous Social Security reforms."