JK Gailbraith: The Parent Trap

Commentary: Social Security "reform" is being touted as fiscal liberation for the young. What will young families do when it condemns them to care for their elders.

By James K. Galbraith

May/June 2005 Issue

PRESIDENT BUSH IS SELLING his partial privatization plan for Social Security to young voters as a replacement for a system that "won't be there"—so it's said—when they retire. But in the tortured tales of financial crisis, the effects of his proposal on future family life haven't often been mentioned. They should be. For it is not too much to say that Bush's plan, if enacted, would impose a "family responsibility system" for elder care. And down the road, that would tear many American families to shreds.