That Boring Blogger

It seems that there is some debate as to whether Bush's plan is an example of privatization (as Democrats seem to think) or not (as Republicans seem to think). Bush claims that the term is brought out as a "scare tactic."

I have to say that I side with Bush on this one. Bush's plan is not by definition privatization, as it would be totally conceivable that such a plan could be fully run by employees of the government. That being said, I'm not sure that Bush has ever gone on record as saying that he would arrange for that to be the case.

The good news is that opinions of the plan don't vary by what it is called, as Robin Toner of the International Herald Tribune noted on March 24, 2005:


"But one recent poll found that it made no difference whether the accounts were described as personal or private. Robert Blendon, an expert on public opinion at Harvard who helped conduct the poll for The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard, said: "Since we know people are very negative about privatization, we thought it would spill over. But maybe people have adapted to it."

Score 1 for the viewing public.

Is privatization a bad thing?

It certainly has the potential to be. With even such legendarily moral business leaders as Warren Buffet being dragged into the muck (still likely to be innocent) its hard not to be cynical when so much potential for Backroom Buck Bagging gets passed into private industry. Still, if there were sufficient oversight, it is always conceivable that letting private firms bid to reduce costs and increase efficiency wouldn't be a bad thing. I don't support it per se, but I don't necessarily regard it as so bad that it could be called a "scare tactic."

One of my noble readers points out that Bush and his crew were the first to use the term Privatization and only backed off of it once it was clear that it carried negative connotations in the Public. My bad -- I didn't know the history and only knew that those same folk are out there now, circulating fliers to the Press which show why this isn't privatization.

I suspect that the truth might be slightly more nuanced. Early on, there certainly was talk about using private companies to manage this money (which would certainly have been privatization - and, in my opinion a bad idea). Nowadays that talk is nowhere to be found. If it re-emerges, the accusation of privatization will be fair game again.

Thanks for setting the record straight, Moan.

As always, thanks for reading.