Gerhardt ECO/PLSC 2320 Spring 2001

CLASS DEBATE-- WEEK 11

THE DEBATE will consider the following proposition: Resolved that the United States should replace the Social Security (OASI) program (wholly or in part) with mandatory personal savings accounts at the earliest feasible date.

This will NOT be a formal debate. Rather, I want members of the affirmative and negative teams to present their answers to the following questions, for discussion by their opponents and by the rest of the class.

1.What is the likely financial future of Social Security, absent major structural changes?

2.What are the principal claims for, and objections to, privatization (in whole or part) as a means to strengthening the financial future of OASI?

3.What are the principal claims for, and objections to, strengthening and modernizing the current OASI system as alternatives to privatization?

4.To what extent are these objections driven by perceived differential effects of privatization on age groups? On income groups? On other interests?

5.To what extent do the differing views on Social Security reform reflect utilitarian, libertarian, and egalitarian notions of distributive justice?

PREPARATION. Students assigned to this debate should discuss these questions, and possible answers to them, as a group. They should then sort themselves into equal-size AFFIRMATIVE and NEGATIVE TEAMS. The teams will present their cases in class on Thursday, April 5.

Copies of some fairly recent information on the national debate over Social Security will be distributed in class. “A Newer New Deal” reviews the national debate as of early January, 1999, just before President Clinton included some elements of Social Security privatization in his 1999 State of the Union Address. It comes from the earnestly middle-of-the-road weekly, National Journal. “Tentative Steps on Social Security,” from the same source, reviews the status of reform measures some ten weeks later.

You can find more information in the libraries and on the internet, but I hope you will spend most of your preparation time deciding, collectively and individually, how best to present your answers to the questions above.

EVALUATION. At the end of the class period, I shall ask each member of the presenting teams to rate their own and others’ efforts in preparation, and members of the audience to rate each presenter’s performance.