WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 15: (L-R) Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and other Congressional Democrats hold a rally and news conference ahead of a House vote on health care and prescription drug legislation in the Rayburn Room at the U.S. Capitol May 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. The bicameral group of Democrats urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to bring the Strengthening Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act up for a vote in the Senate. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Social Security is not going bankrupt, and that’s the problem. It means the politics don’t work for Republicans to pursue Social Security choice.
As for the Democrats, what the Republicans can’t do sets the Democrats up to do, all in the name of choice. Since they’re still perceived as the Party of the working man, they can uniquely “go to China” on Social Security where allegedly Wall Street-friendly Republicans cannot. All that, plus the politics make sense. Think about it.
For one, Democrats are more prone than Republicans are to lament the wealth gap. Except that a big driver of the latter can be found in the wealth difference between annual income and annual acquisition of equities. Here’s a chance for Democrats to say they aim to give Americans the option to enhance their long-term wealth and retirement options via equity ownership over W-2 income.
For two, consider where some of the most valuable corporations in the world are hatching: blue states like California loom large. In just the past month alone, three California-based companies (Databricks, Anthropic and OpenAI) were respectively valued at $100 billion, $185 billion, and $500 billion. And while all three are private companies, in time they’ll go public. Here’s a chance for Democrats to brag to their voter base about the remarkable enterprise taking place in blue states, and pair it with the option for voters of all stripes to ultimately acquire exposure to all this innovation.
For three, contra conventional wisdom, “Wall Street” has long leaned Democrat as is. Think Goldman Sachs, arguably the world’s most prominent investment bank. In creating the option for Americans to opt out of Social Security in favor of private accounts that can be passed on to wives, husbands, children and grandchildren, Democrats will have some of the most capable names in finance to help them sell their vision in the media.
Next, consider what increased equity exposure among the Democratic voting base would mean for Democratic politicians. They could be more pro-business precisely because their voting base will potentially evolve in a more pro-business way.
This is important as business titans like J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon describe themselves as “barely a Democrat” in the way that a frustrated Dimon did during Barack Obama’s presidency. If Democratic voters have a greater percentage of their wealth exposed to American business, then Democratic politicians can become more openly favorable to business in a way that pleases both voters and business interests alike. Paraphrasing John Kerry during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries, “you can’t love jobs and hate the job creators.”
Which brings us to choice. Notice that “privatization” was never mentioned in this opinion piece. With good reason. There’s no privatization to speak of. Proper legislation would simply give Americans the option to opt out of a Social Security program that exposes merely theoretical individual Social Security accounts (see Flemming v. Nestor if you’re doubtful) to the U.S. dollar, versus true ownership of the world’s greatest businesses, many of them based in the bluest of blue states. Which is the point, or should be.
Not only are the Democrats uniquely able to once again “go to China,” it’s difficult to see where the politics of doing so hurt them, particularly since the Republicans would either have to vote with the Democrats for choice, or look like congenital socialists. The Democrats should “go to China” not because they must, but because that’s where the votes are.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2025/09/27/only-the-democrats-can-go-to-china-on-social-security/
