Social Security Reform

This particular cartoon speaks to the reception of this idea of getting rid of social security and initiating a personal responsibility movement when it comes to retirement funds. President Bush is shown as a pitcher in a baseball uniform and his team is shown as “ Social Security Reform”. He winds up and delivers the pitch but the last frame of the comic shows him looking off into the distance. The reader is left to assume the pitch was possibly knocked out of the park, in which case, the pitch of social security reform was not received well by the general population and for that matter, utterly rejected. It is believed that the social security reform that the president is proposing will place many people’s retirement in danger for the sheer fact that much of the money that will be saved is expected to be placed in the stock market which does not guarantee profit. As a matter of fact, may people have taken severe losses which have even led to bankruptcy. Another part of the controversy is the fact that the working labor force is contributing to social security, yet when it comes time for them to collect, there will be nothing for them to claim. The feeling is like being robed of money. Another perspective is that hours have been spent working, in essence, for free. There have been no reports of a plan to reciprocate those men and women who are presently working. Reforming social security, so to speak, will also put a heavy burden on future generations who will have to financially support there elderly parents who can no longer work but have not properly saved there money or who have improperly invested there money and taken losses. A more positive view of social security reform is the fact that it is believed that it take a chunk out of the national deficit. This is supposed to be a means of giving a heads up since it is projected that the well that provides the funds for social security will be dry in the next few up coming decades due to the Baby Boomer generation and the declining population.

Clay Bennett, the cartoonist, is on the opposing perspective of “Social Security Reform”. It’s evident in the fact that he would even draw a cartoon such as this to be printed in a newspaper for the observation