I’ll say this for Republicans: they play the long game.
The latest evidence for this comes from the mouth of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Speaking at an event Wednesday, Bessent told the audience that so-called Trump Accounts — that is, the $1,000 the “big beautiful bill” put in an investment account for every child born between 2025 and 2028 — would serve as “a backdoor for privatizing Social Security.”
The pushback was so fierce that Bessent backpeddled immediately, both on cable news and social media. The Trump Accounts, he told CNBC, would be a “supplement to Social Security, not a substitute.”
But Bessent was far from unclear in his original remarks. “Social Security is a defined benefit plan paid out,” he told the audience at Breitbart. “To the extent that if all of a sudden these accounts grow, and you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement, then that’s a game changer.”
Bessent’s insistence that he didn’t say what he said calls to mind Michael Kinsley’s classic description of the Washington gaffe — “a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.”
Let’s be clear: Social Security is not going belly up.
Many Republican politicians have pushed back against Social Security for almost the entirety of its 90-year existence. They can’t seem to stop themselves, despite its enduring popularity. And make no mistake, privatization is just another attack on the program.
Because it polls so well, Republicans need to claim their changes — which would weaken the program — are actually a good thing. Usually, they claim that Social Security is going bankrupt, or that it’s a Ponzi scheme, as Elon Musk recently did on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Fearmongering primes people for cutbacks. As Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, said more than 40 years ago, if people believe the program is in imminent danger, politicians can “look like they are doing something for the beneficiary population when they’re doing something to it.”
Before we go further, let’s be clear: Social Security is not going belly up. True, the program’s finances need shoring up. But that easily could be covered by raising the payroll tax cap, currently set at $176,100, and taxing capital gains, dividends and interest income, as Democrats like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are forever pointing out.
Privatization, on the other hand, is a sneak attack. It has the appeal of not sounding like a cutback — instead, advocates say, your money will do better than if you just left it in that lousy Social Security system!
But Americans are quite aware privatization isn’t as good as it sounds. First, those promised stock market returns are hardly a guarantee. Second, taking money out of the government Social Security system weakens the overall system. It leaves fewer dedicated funds to pay current and future retirees their guaranteed benefits — benefits they contributed toward over the course of their entire working career.
Just about the only place privatization is popular is Wall Street. After George W. Bush won a second term in the 2004 presidential election, he made a major push to allow younger workers to divert a portion of their mandatory Social Security contributions into private investment accounts. The plan proved so unpopular that it was quickly shelved, and likely contributed to the Democrats retaking Congress in the 2006 elections. Just about the only place privatization is popular is Wall Street, which would love to get their hands on even more of America’s retirement savings. Privatization would fit neatly with the Trump administration’s other efforts to make Wall Street happy, including opening up individual 401(k)s, and the billions of dollars saved and invested within, to private equity and other risky and inappropriate investments. Privatization’s unpopularity hasn’t discouraged proponents. Just last year, Sen. Mike Lee claimed Franklin Roosevelt sold the American public on “a bill of goods” when he enacted Social Security during the Great Depression, and called for privatizing it. “Do the math: with Social Security, you’re looking at a return that’s pathetic compared to market averages. It’s not even an investment; it’s a tax,” he wrote. “We need real genuine reform … Americans should be able to invest in their own future.” Finally, Bessent’s remarks need to be considered in the context of the actions of the second Trump administration. After he returned to the Oval Office, Trump falsely told Congress that Social Security goes to “millions of dead people.” Among his administration’s first actions was a DOGE-led attack on the Social Security Administration, with disastrous consequences for service. As critics warned that a system outage would be catastrophic, billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed only a “fraudster” would complain if their Social Security check didn’t arrive as scheduled. And the Republican budget bill piled on, doling out so many tax cuts that the Social Security Trust Fund is on track to run out of money in 2034, a full year earlier than prior projections. In his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, Trump endorsed privatizing Social Security and cutting benefits. Since his first campaign for president, though, Trump has claimed he will protect Social Security. The latter pledge, like most Trump promises, is a mirage, and Bessent’s comments are just the latest proof of that.
Helaine R. Olen
Helaine R. Olen is the author of "Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry" and a co-author of "The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated." She has been a columnist for The Washington Post and Slate, and her work has also appeared in numerous other publications, including The New York Times and The Atlantic. 
