Dave Zweifel

When Social Security was enacted as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms in 1935, about half of U.S. senior citizens lived in poverty. Many had to live out their lives in shameful places that people at the time called the “poor farm.” It was forever a family’s shame when during the Depression, grandma and grandpa had to go off to live in one of the county’s makeshift homes for the elderly because they couldn’t afford their own places and their children couldn’t afford to help them.

Today, fewer than 10 percent of America’s elderly live in poverty. More than 53 million Americans receive Social Security benefits to at least cover the basics of life. And as Bernie Sanders said, in the more than 75 years since, the program has never failed to pay out every nickel it owed.

Now Ryan and his compatriots want to mess with that success story. They want to begin the privatization of Social Security by turning over part of the funds that America’s working people pay into the program to Wall Street investors — yes, the same investors who have such a great track record, like blowing up the economy and requiring federal bailouts to save them.

...[H]ere in Wisconsin all we need do is take a look at  our two U.S. senators, who both happen to be successful businessmen. Together,  they epitomize the two different worlds that Collins paints.

One, the soon-to-retire Herb Kohl, built a highly successful empire of  grocery stores, all the while following the rules, contributing his fair share  of taxes and helping promote the state's social and cultural life.

Then there's the new senator, Ron Johnson, who built a plastics business in  no small part thanks to some well-placed tax breaks, and who now spends his time  in Washington complaining about taxes, insisting that government needs to "get  out of the way," and opposing any kind of health care reform that might benefit  the uninsured.

Kohl spent his entire career espousing the belief that business and  government could partner to make this a better world. Johnson wants no such  partnership. Business needs to be left alone, no matter what means it must use  to achieve its ends.