Not For The Private Sector

From an Op Ed piece by Dennis Laurion in the Duluth News Tribune:

Having always voted for Republicans — except Richard Nixon and George W. Bush — I now have three concerns that preclude my voting for Sen. John McCain: his continued support of the Iraq War, his support for privatizing Social Security and his desire to farm out work that should be done by government employees.

After military service I worked for the Social Security Administration. I processed disability claims and monitored continuing entitlement of disability beneficiaries. Everybody I worked with took seriously their role as steward of public money. They dug into people’s allegations and made strong commitments to pay legitimate claims and deny unfounded

Under the Bush administration, my district office in Duluth went from three managers and 25 employees to three managers and 12 employees. At 25 employees, we could not keep up with the workload, no matter how hard we tried. I firmly believe that the Bush administration appointed foxes to take charge of the hen house and depleted Social Security Administration staff so it could promote the idea that the Social Security Administration can’t do the work, and that the U.S. needs private accounts.