Someone (TPM Reader NE) sent me this link to a comment at Redstate.org encouraging people to come to a protest of Rock The Vote at the group’s annual awards dinner tonight. It’s sponsored, of course, by the new privatization astroturf group — Social Security for all — the one put together by Koch Industries other DC outlet, Americans for Progress.
In the post it says that Rock The Vote is hypocritical because they’re against phasing out Social Security when in fact young people are in favor of phasing out Social Security.
So they’re hypocrites — unlike the renta-activists from Social Security for All.
Now, do young people really support phasing out Social Security? I’m not so sure about that. A lot of this turns on how the questions are worded. Asking generically about investing Social Security money in the stock market, without mentioning the risks or costs involved, polls pretty respectably — now minority support, but substantial minority support.
But for months when pollsters have asked whether voters support ‘the Bush plan on Social Security’ the numbers are overwhelmingly against — even among the youngest voters, though they tend to be more supportive than older voters.
There’s a similar difference when the question is asked in context. Again, privitization polls terribly.
Point being, it’s really not at all clear that young voters support privatization.
But what interested me more about the logic behind Social Security for All is that by their reasoning none of the pro-phase-out groups should exist at all. The public overwhelmingly opposes the Bush plan — the old, the middle-aged, the young, probably even the young-at-heart, though they’re harder to sample for.
So I guess that means that all the pro-phase-out groups should cease to exist for being such hypocrites.
Which phoney-baloney privatization astroturf group will be the first to drink the hemlock?
