[Update from SinclairAction: 
“The Point,” debuted a new format on January 31. Conspicuously absent
from the segment's new opening sequence is the word “commentary.”]

At worst, Social Security will cover 75% of its intended benefits in
four decades. That’s with a very conservative estimate of the growth of
the economy, and assuming we do nothing to prevent this from happening
(such as undoing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which
would by itself keep Social Security fine and dandy for the foreseeable
future).

But [pResident] Bush and Mark Hyman say that privatizing Social Security
is the only answer. In fact, there are only two things wrong with
privatization: it won’t work and it’s immoral.

First of all, it’s inefficient. The overhead costs for managing the
funding for Social Security are less than 1% of total benefits.
Privatized funds would end up costing 12-14% of the total funds just to
pay for red tape and paper shuffling. This translates into up to a
20-30% reduction in benefits as compared with what Social Security can
do on its own. That’s not a deal; it’s a ripoff.

Hyman suggests that lots of retirement and pension funds involve
private investing. That’s exactly the point. Plenty of retirement and
pension funds have gone bankrupt or ended up paying far less in
benefits than what was promised. (How would you like to be an Enron
employee nearing retirement right now without the promise of Social
Security?) The whole purpose of Social Security is to provide an
insurance plan that all retirees will know is there for them, no matter
what the market does or whether the folks managing their funds do their
job properly.

Hyman also claims privatizing Social Security would end up creating some
sort of economic boom. But right now, Social Security funds are
invested in bonds, which in turn play a pivotal part in the economy,
precisely because they are secure. Privatizing Social Security doesn’t
suddenly add money to the economy; it takes money that’s already
supporting the economy and puts it at needless risk.

Moreover, it’s not likely that private accounts would return more than
Social Security now does. In fact, over the long haul, Social Security
is today providing retirees with as much or more money than they would
have received through investing in stock portfolios. In fact, other
countries have tried privatizing their versions of Social Security, and
the result has been an increase in poverty among the elderly that will
end up costing far more than simply leaving things alone would have.

Most importantly, privatizing Social Security fundamentally changes the
nature of the program. Social Security has been the most successful
insurance program in the history of the nation, keeping millions of
elderly Americans out of poverty. Privatizing it changes Social
Security from an insurance plan to an investment scheme which will
certainly have winners and losers. Are we as a nation comfortable with
the idea of a large increase in elderly men and women living in
poverty? That’s a certain result of any privatization scheme.

So why do conservatives want to privatize Social Security anyway? If
this is all so obvious (and it is), why are they pushing for it?

Because they don’t believe in the basic principle behind it: that
Americans owe it to each other to make sure no elderly person faces the
end of their life in debilitating poverty. Not in the richest country
in the world. Conservatives don’t simply want to partially privatize
Social Security. They want to do away with it and let the invisible
hand of the free market take over. They want to scare Americans into
handing over their guarantee of a modest but respectable old age so
that these funds can be put in the hands of Wall Street profiteers
who’ll make a killing on commissions while putting the futures of
millions of Americans on a giant craps table and rolling the dice.

In the conservative’s mind, that’s just fine: whatever puts money in
the hands who will risk it in the name of the free market is good for
the whole country. After all, we don’t really owe anything to each
other anyway, right? It’s everyone for themselves in this world.

There’s only one thing wrong with this position.

It’s a lie.