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A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Social Security Should Be Privatized (1996-12-04)
About this film
Is the Social Security system a Ponzi scheme that can't long survive the retirement of the last baby-boomers, as Messrs. Buckley and Goodman suggest? Or is it, as Mr. Eisner puts it, the "system which has lifted the elderly out of poverty to at least the same extent as people of working age"? If we agree (which even the most optimistic of the participants do) that something will have to be done by about 2029, what should that "something" be? Waiting for the crisis to hit and raising taxes on that generation of workers? Or changing gears right now and following the Chilean example of privatization? Today's debaters sometimes talk past each other-e.g., to Mr. Goodman's complaint that encouraging a larger population, via higher birth rate or more immigration, doesn't solve the problem, Mr. Eisner answers: "The key to the best treatment of the elderly is to have the most prosperous economy." But they also came prepared with facts and figures, which they often impart in an arresting way. Mr. du Pont: "I do know that ... [for] any ten-year period in the history of the United States for the last 120 years, if you had invested your money on the first day of that ten years in the stock mark…
Directors & creators
Southern Educational Communications Association
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, William F. Buckley Jr., John C. Goodman, Robert Eisner, Pete du Pont, Social Security, privatization, retirement policy, pension systems, stock market, Chilean pension model, economic policy, demographics, baby boomers, taxation
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