In 1965 Ronald Reagan said “Government is like a big baby — an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other,” and it’s a safe bet he wasn’t talking about Louisiana’s 2008 Senate race.Too bad Sen. Mary Landrieu and three-term State Treasurer John Kennedy didn’t get that memo.Landrieu’s latest round of attack ads claims Kennedy has “flip-flopped” his position on Social Security privatization and asserts he is dangerous for both our state and country.She’s right. He did — it’s in the public record — and thank God he did.It shows our leaders are capable of errors in judgment. It shows our leaders are capable of admitting their own mistakes when presented with reliable data.As ugly as the Landrieu/Kennedy campaign is shaping up to be, it isn’t like this debate about social security is anything new. The idea of a tax to pay for retirement was as contentious in the 1930s as it is today — only back then it was the Democrats who were called dangers to society.The Roosevelt administration passed the Social Security Act in 1935 to provide some sense of relief against the dangers of life during the Great Depression: old age, unemployment and widows having to raise children alone.  Payments were financed by a payroll tax on a worker’s wages and by their employers then just as they are now.Two different U.S. Supreme Court decisions upheld the constitutionality of the Social Security tax. Steward Machine Company v. Davis upheld that such a tax served to promote the general welfare of the country while Helvering v. Davis upheld Social Security’s legality — it was an exercise of Congress’ general powers of taxation.It remained a heated issue since its beginning and through repeated reforms, and it finally hit the boiling point during the 2000 election between then Vice President Al Gore and then Gov. George W. Bush.During the Oct. 4 debate Gore promised social security would “stay in a lockbox, and I’ll tell you this, I will veto anything that takes money out of Social Security for privatization or anything else, other than Social Security.”Bush disagreed.”[Gore] keeps claiming it’s going to be out of Social Security,” Bush said. “It’s your money. It’s a part of your retirement benefits. It’s a fundamental difference between what we believe. I want you to have your own asset that you can call your own.”The debate continued into 2004 when Bush’s re-election was challenged by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Kerry claimed the president’s plan would cut benefits and raise the retirement age while Bush alleged this was a scare tactic preying on the elderly.While Bush’s figures might not have panned out, he got the substance of the problem right — Social Security is in grave trouble if something doesn’t give.The Congressional Budget Office’s 2005 report, “Updated Long-Term Projections for Social Security,” suggests Social Security’s funding will be in the red around 2018, and then it will have to begin tapping into its general fund to sustain coverage. By the middle of the century, even the funds in this account may no longer be enough, and the federal government will have to either raise taxes or cut benefits.This sort of thing isn’t on a lot of University students’ minds, but it should be. We’re the ones who this will effect.A current University freshman who graduates in four years and stays in the workforce for 30 years after that will be retiring in 2042.I don’t want to begin the twilight of my days playing with my grandchildren, baking pies, crocheting — or whatever it is that retired folks do — knowing that my security relied upon the empty promises of a half-wit like Mary Landrieu. I want to retire with dignity and not worry about whether I have the money to live decently.Kennedy understands Social Security privatization ensures that our retirement years don’t have to be in peril. There’s evidence that privatization can work.In the 1980s several employees in Galveston County, Texas, were allowed to opt out of the Social Security program and place their money in private accounts. For employees who earned $50,000 per year, Social Security would have earned $1,302 per month, but these private accounts generated $6,843 per month. People who earned $20,000 would have received $775 in Social Security monthly, and yet the standard return for them was $2,740 monthly.So while Kennedy revisited past mistakes, Landrieu seems incapable of the same introspection. But then again, who can blame her?No one ever accused a Landrieu of trying to reduce government bloat.—-Contact Matt McEntire at [email protected]