Defend Social Security

Democrats must refuse to mess with the retirement program.

By Heather Digby Parton

In his 1989 book On Borrowed Time, Wall Street baron Peter G. Peterson wrote that “heroic medical interventions on behalf of the aged constitute an unaffordable and unjustifiable claim on society’s resources,” adding that “the elderly, after all, have already accomplished and enjoyed most, if not all, of what they can reasonably expect in life.” In 1994, he famously said, “We will no longer be able to afford a system that equates the last third or more of one’s adult life with a publicly subsidized vacation.” In 2000, when the budget was in surplus, he told PBS that even trying to put more money into the Social Security system was futile because some future politician would just spend it. In 2005 the Bush administration’s failed privatization scheme was a set-back. But Peterson didn’t give up. By 2008, he had created a new organization devoted to sounding the alarm about Social Security solvency (again), and seeded it with $1 billion.