"I think we'll build a consensus for action on Social Security reform which will reduce that long-term unfunded obligation and put the system on a sustainable basis"
About this Quote
Technocracy with a velvet glove: Snow’s sentence is built to sound like inevitability disguised as collaboration. “I think we’ll build a consensus” doesn’t describe a plan so much as pre-frame dissent as premature. Consensus is treated as something officials construct, not something citizens grant. It’s a quiet assertion of elite competence, a promise that the messy politics will be smoothed into agreement once the adults finish the math.
The real work happens in the phrase “long-term unfunded obligation.” That’s actuarial language, and it’s doing rhetorical laundering. Instead of saying “benefit cuts,” “later retirement,” or “higher payroll taxes,” Snow offers a balance-sheet abstraction that makes the problem feel technical rather than moral. The subtext: if you oppose the reform package, you’re opposing sustainability itself. “Put the system on a sustainable basis” seals the move. Sustainability is a cultural keyword that carries a whiff of environmental virtue and fiscal prudence, even when it’s code for shifting risk from government to individuals.
Context matters: Snow, as Treasury Secretary in the early 2000s, was speaking in an era when “reform” often meant partial privatization, budget discipline, and market logic applied to social insurance. His economist’s cadence markets reform as neutral maintenance, not ideological change. The intent is to lower the temperature: present Social Security not as a pact between generations but as a liability to be managed. It’s language designed to win by narrowing the frame until only one conclusion seems responsible.
The real work happens in the phrase “long-term unfunded obligation.” That’s actuarial language, and it’s doing rhetorical laundering. Instead of saying “benefit cuts,” “later retirement,” or “higher payroll taxes,” Snow offers a balance-sheet abstraction that makes the problem feel technical rather than moral. The subtext: if you oppose the reform package, you’re opposing sustainability itself. “Put the system on a sustainable basis” seals the move. Sustainability is a cultural keyword that carries a whiff of environmental virtue and fiscal prudence, even when it’s code for shifting risk from government to individuals.
Context matters: Snow, as Treasury Secretary in the early 2000s, was speaking in an era when “reform” often meant partial privatization, budget discipline, and market logic applied to social insurance. His economist’s cadence markets reform as neutral maintenance, not ideological change. The intent is to lower the temperature: present Social Security not as a pact between generations but as a liability to be managed. It’s language designed to win by narrowing the frame until only one conclusion seems responsible.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|
More Quotes by John
Add to List
