IIn 2010 the Democratic-controlled White House commissioned a deficit committee. This sounds good, but they are proposing to slash benefits to a program that doesn’t contribute one penny to our nation’s deficit or national debt. Social Security is under attack with hyperbole and misleading information. We might expect this from the Republican Party, with their seething hatred for well-run government programs, but having the former party of the people attacking the most successful program in our country’s history shows the influence of special interests and their lobbyists on our entire political system. We cannot let this happen.

Since the 1950s, retirement has been a three-pillar stool of Equity in our homes, Pensions, and Social Security. In 1980 we had a private workforce that was about twenty-five percent unionized; fifty percent of workers had pensions, and the average U.S. homeowner had two-thirds equity in their homes. In 2010 only about six percent of the private workforce is unionized, eight percent have pensions, and our housing market has crashed, leaving one in three American homeowners owing more on their home than it’s worth. The only remaining solid pillar in this stool is Social Security, because it hasn’t been subject to the privatization epidemic we have experienced over the past 30 years.

The fact is that Social Security is solvent and in 2009 brought in a surplus. If nothing is done to the insurance program it will pay out full payments until the year 2039. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, in 2010 there is a $2.5 trillion surplus, and that will grow to $4 trillion by 2023. So the Republican fear tactics are a lie and the Democratic leadership inability to stand up to the financial sector lobbying efforts is a symptom of a corrupted political system that is leaving average Americans out in the cold.

The Republican Party and the Corporate Democrats are proposing to privatize Social Security and to increase the retirement age to seventy.

Privatizing was pushed hard by the Bush administration, and luckily the plan didn’t go through. Imagine how much worse condition our nation would be in if Social Security had been at the mercy of Wall Street CEOs. Tens of millions of Americans are already hurting because of the deregulated Wall Street giants and their direct involvement in the American economy’s collapse. The big payoff for Wall Street in privatizing Social Security would be the administrative costs of processing trillions of dollars, which translates into more fees and risk for workers. This is an absolutely horrible idea and must never happen.

The second proposal is to increase the retirement age to seventy. Seventy! This is an immoral proposal for a number of reasons. One, it increases the likelihood that tens of thousands of Americans will die before receiving a single payment due to having to work well into their retirement years. Two, by increasing the age, about fifteen percent of benefits will be lost by younger workers due to the extended years they have to pay into program but are not receiving payments from it. Three, this will increase the number of people in the work pool, thereby increasing unemployment and decreasing workers wages. Increasing the retirement age to seventy is immoral, wrong, and counterproductive in building a strong middle class.

I’m proposing a simple answer that will make the FICA tax progressive and Social Security solvent forever. Remove the FICA $106,800 cap and make all income susceptible to the tax, except long-term investments of seven years or more. By doing this, millionaires and billionaires will pay into the program at the same percentage as the rest of us. According to the New America Foundation and their recent study and article on Social Security “Secure Retirement for All Americans,” we could increase benefits to recipients by 50% if the cap is removed. My proposal is to give a paycheck tax break to all Americans by reducing the roughly 12 percent tax down to a 10 percent tax, allowing more people to have more money in their pockets while creating a solvent Social Security forever.

Lets make the adjustments needed to ensure a retirement with dignity for all Americans for generations to come.

Original Blog Post

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia—Here in this small Andean nation of 10 million people, the glaciers are melting, threatening the water supply of the largest urban area in the country, El Alto and La Paz, with 3.5 million people living at altitudes over 10,000 feet. I flew from El Alto International, the world’s highest commercial airport, to the city of Cochabamba.

Bolivian President Evo Morales calls Cochabamba the heart of Bolivia. It was here, 10 years ago this month, that, as one observer put it, “the first rebellion of the 21st century” took place. In what was dubbed the Water Wars, people from around Bolivia converged on Cochabamba to overturn the privatization of the public water system. As Jim Shultz, founder of the Cochabamba-based Democracy Center, told me, “People like a good David-and-Goliath story, and the water revolt is David not just beating one Goliath, but three. We call them the three Bs: Bechtel, Banzer and the Bank.” The World Bank, Shultz explained, coerced the Bolivian government, under President Hugo Banzer, who had ruled as a dictator in the 1970s, to privatize Cochabamba’s water system. The multinational corporation Bechtel, the sole bidder, took control of the public water system.

On Sunday, I walked around the Plaza Principal, in central Cochabamba, with Marcela Olivera, who was out on the streets 10 years ago. I asked her about the movement’s original banner, hanging for the anniversary, that reads, in Spanish, “El agua es nuestra, carajo!”—“The water is ours, damn it!” Bechtel was jacking up water rates. The first to notice were the farmers, dependent on irrigation. They appealed for support from the urban factory workers. Oscar Olivera, Marcela’s brother, was their leader. He proclaimed, at one of their rallies, “If the government doesn’t want the water company to leave the country, the people will throw them out.”

Marcela recounted: “On the 4th of February, we called the people to a mobilization here. We call it ‘la toma de la plaza,’ the takeover of the plaza. It was going to be the meeting of the people from the fields, meeting the people from the city, all getting together here at one time…. The government said that that wasn’t going to be allowed to happen. Several days before this was going to happen, they sent policemen in cars and on motorcycles that were surrounding the city, trying to scare the people. And the actual day of the mobilization, they didn’t let the people walk even 10 meters, and they started to shoot them with gases.” The city was shut down by the coalition of farmers, factory workers and coca growers, known as cocaleros. Unrest and strikes spread to other cities. During a military crackdown and state of emergency declared by then-President Banzer, 17-year-old Victor Hugo Daza was shot in the face and killed. Amid public furor, Bechtel fled the city, and its contract with the Bolivian government was canceled.

The cocaleros played a crucial role in the victory. Their leader was Evo Morales. The Cochabamba Water Wars would eventually launch him into the presidency of Bolivia. At the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, he called for the most rigorous action on climate change.

After the summit, Bolivia refused to support the U.S.-brokered, nonbinding Copenhagen Accord. Bolivia’s ambassador to the U.N., Pablo Solon, told me that, as a result, “we were notified, by the media, that the United States was cutting around $3 million to $3.5 million for projects that have to do with climate change.” Instead of taking U.S. aid money for climate change, Bolivia is taking a leadership role in helping organize civil society and governments, globally, with one goal—to alter the course of the next major U.N. climate summit, set for Cancun, Mexico, in December. Which is why more than 15,000 people from more than 120 countries have gathered here this week of Earth Day, at the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Morales called for the gathering to give the poor and the Global South an opportunity to respond to the failed climate talks in Copenhagen.

Ambassador Solon explained the reasoning behind this people’s summit:

“People are asking me how this is coming from a small country like Bolivia. I am the ambassador to the U.N. I know this institution. If there is no pressure from civilian society, change will not come from the U.N. The other pressure on governments comes from transnational corporations. In order to counteract that, we need to develop a voice from the grass roots.”
 
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.