The weekly rant

By Terrie Albano

People's Weekly World

Social Security has been on my mind a lot. Well, I guess it's been on a lot of other people's minds, too.

But to tell you the truth I haven't been thinking of it in terms of my retirement. I was thinking of it in terms of my college days.

You see, I was just going to college in 1980. My dad retired early at 62. And in those days when a parent retired early, the children who were still college age got a Social Security stipend to help pay for that higher education.

My stipend was about $350 a month. Not bad for a college student. It helped pay for tuition, books and other college-life incidentals: shampoo, food, even an occasional beer. (But please don't ask my college buddies because they may say I reversed the order.)

Anyway, this stipend - along with an Illinois scholarship - was paying my way through college. Part of the American dream, right? A parent works hard all their life and at retirement wants to make sure their remaining kids (three older sisters already went through college) get a piece of the fruit of their lifelong labor. That was the theory anyway.

But then Ronald Reagan took over. Social Security needs to be cut, he said. Otherwise it will go bankrupt. Sound familiar?

So what happened with the Reagan cuts to Social Security? I got a letter in early 1981 stating that the Social Security college stipend would be cut. I got another letter that said the Illinois State Scholarships would be cut. I know that lots of others got similar letters.

Reagan installed a different philosophy and policy for higher education: no to grants and scholarships and yes to student loans. The millions of students that came after me can attest to their present-day student loan blues.

Maybe if you lived through those early '80s cuts you can see the parallels. The ultra-right of this time argue Social Security is in crisis. The ultra-right of that time said the same.

Today's right wing wants to privatize the whole program. The right wing of that time privatized a good portion of it. Today's right wing wants to pit younger and older generations against each other. They did then, too.

They said if they made the cuts in 1980 it would save Social Security. They made their cuts and look what they are saying now. Instead of lowering retirement age they are raising it. Instead of increasing benefits they want the stock market to decide benefits.

Instead of helping every family send their kids to college they want you to invest in an education IRA. Wall Street, Wall Street, Wall Street. That's the altar at which ultra-right politicians bow down.

Social Security was fought and won by regular working-class people. Unions, unemployed councils and, yes, Communists played heroic roles in the struggle to pass a Social Security Act.

It's not enough to say that the Bush administration and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill are lying about the Social Security crisis. The point is to change it.

They say privatize it or use it for other programs. Well, how about taking their programs - like the defense budget - and putting 10 percent of that into Social Security to pay for every 18- to 22-year-old's college education?

Or how about taking another 10 percent of that defense budget and putting it to raising benefits 100 percent and lowering the retirement age?

Social Security means so much for when you retire. It can't be given to the altar of Wall Street. But it doesn't have to be just about retirement either. It can mean social security for your family's future, too.

The author can be reached at Talbano@pww.org