Finley: French riots coming to U.S.

Emmanuel Macron is grabbing the third rail of politics with both hands.

The French president imposed by executive order a hike in the retirement age to 64 from 62 in an effort to keep France's government-funded pension program out of deficit. Macron cited a rising life expectancy — it's now 82 in France — as necessitating his action.

Furious demonstrations immediately broke out in cities across the country and are continuing. A half-million people staged protests of Macron's decision, which also requires 43 years of work before qualifying for full pension benefits.

But he's not backing down, and he's not weighing the political hit to his party, which likely will face a no-confidence vote.

"Between opinion polls and the general interest of the country, I'm choosing the general interest," Macron said. "And if it means bearing unpopularity afterward, I will bear it."

Would that those words came out of the mouth of an American president.

Social Security is hurtling toward disaster even faster than France's system. Current projections are that Social Security reserves will be depleted by 2033, and the Medicare trust fund will go broke in five years.

What are American politicians doing about it? Playing politics. All attempts to get ahead of this fast-approaching disaster are met with accusations that one party or the other wants to kill Social Security and Medicare.

A bipartisan congressional working group formed to figure out how to extend Social Security's solvency had one meeting with the White House, and now says President Joe Biden is "refusing to engage."

It's the sort of cowardice shown by presidents of both parties who prefer to pretend there's no need to worry, and then hand off the headache to their successor, who does the same.

We've waited too long to fix the retirement programs with painless solutions. None of the options are easy.

My preference has always been to privatize Social Security and allow workers to build and control their own savings. The objection that individuals might mismanage their funds and end up with nothing ring hollow with the whole system going bust.

Or the United States could do what Macron has chosen and raise the retirement age. Full benefits kick in at age 65, the same as they did in 1935 when Social Security started, and life expectancy was just under 60 years. Today, the average American can expect to live to 77.

Progressives prefer raising taxes to cutting benefits via an increase in the retirement age. The current taxable earnings cap for Social Security is $160,200. Raising that significantly, or lifting the cap altogether, would buy the program time.

But it would break Biden's promise not to raise taxes on households earning less than $400,000 a year and make Social Security even more of a wealth transfer program instead of the retirement savings plan it pretends to be.

All of the options are unsavory, and will anger voters.

But if we let another decade go by without acting, and Social Security and Medicare have to be slashed or exorbitant taxes imposed to keep the benefit checks flowing, the riots that break out on American streets will dwarf what we're seeing this week in France.

Twitter: @NolanFinleyDN

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