Back From The Dead: Privatization

Roger Hickey and Jeff Cruz

August 10, 2006

Roger Hickey is co-director of the Campaign for America's Future and Jeff Cruz is a senior policy analyst, directing CAF's Social Security and Medicare Project.

It is hard to believe, but the idea of privatizing Social Security, which most observers thought had been killed and buried, could return, Dracula-like, from the dead after the 2006 elections.

You won’t hear many candidates for Congress talking about their support for diverting Social Security taxes to fund private accounts—certainly not before the election if they can help it. But most Republicans quietly remain true believers. President Bush, his leading cabinet figures and key Republican leaders in both the House and Senate have been very clear about their plans to again push privatization—despite what the public backlash against Bush’s “big idea” did to them in 2005.