We got some thunder on the right of this nature today, with Milton Friedman offering a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, "Social Security Socialism."
The no-bull Nobelist states: "I have often speculated that an ingenious way for a socialist to achieve his objective in the U.S. would be to persuade Congress, in the name of fiscal responsibility, to (1) fully fund obligations under Social Security, and (2) invest the accumulated reserves in the private-capital market by purchasing equity interests in domestic corporations....
"Suppose the president's [i.e., Clinton's] proposed policy had been followed in its most extreme form from the outset of Social Security in 1937, i.e., that the whole excess of Social Security tax receipts over Social Security benefits payments ... had been invested in the stock market.... [T]he trust fund at the end of 1997 would have totaled ... approximately $7 trillion. In that case, the Social Security trust fund would own more than half of all domestic corporations! To return to my socialist fantasy, full funding would long since have brought complete socialism."
A fantasy which, as the redoubtable Milt avers, is truly a nightmare: "Have we not learned from the experience of the past century that private property is the key bulwark of personal freedom?" Over to you, Gen. Pinochet ...
Carl Remick