Bush moves on plan to privatize Social Security

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fresh off re-election, President Bush is dusting off an ambitious plan to overhaul Social Security, a controversial proposal that had been shelved because of politics and the administration's focus on tax cuts and terrorism.

Bush envisions a framework that would partially privatize Social Security with personal investment accounts similar to 401(k) plans.

A starting point is a plan proposed by a presidential commission in 2001 that would divert 2 percent of workers' payroll taxes into private accounts. The remaining 4.2 percent -- and the Social Security taxes employers pay -- would go into the system, helping fund benefits for current retirees. That leaves a shortfall of at least $2 trillion to continue funding benefits for those current retirees.

[url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/10/social.security.ap/index.html]http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/10/social.security.ap/index.html[/ url]

Bush said his commission, headed by the late Democratic Sen. Patrick Moynihan of New York, provided "a good blueprint."

For future retirees, base benefits would be cut by tying them to inflation instead of wage growth, with stock market gains assumed to make up any shortfall. The concept gained support in the stock market boom of the late 1990s.

Bush has not said how the $2 trillion transition costs would be funded, nor did his commission. Record deficits, Bush's desire to make his five rounds of tax cuts permanent and the rising cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan are major obstacles.


So what about you guys, would you like to see this put in place or do you like the way Social Security is handled now ?

I would like to have the option of "investing" my money, my way.

I hope this gets passed.

Control of your own money is one of the biggest fears of the democrats.

They, of course, think they can spend it better than you can.

If he ever wanted to piss off the over 65 crowd, the WWII generation, he has just done it. They will tear into pieces over this. Unlike the rest of this countries population, the old folks here don't take s..t from anyone.

Not if they can read grndlkntv.
The privitisation will only affect those who will be retiring in 40 years. Any one retirng in the next 20 won't see any difference.

Doesn't matter if they can read or not. They are smart enough to not believe any horse trader plus unlike most of the country today they can add, subtract and have common sense. If the deficit is already 3 trillion dollars and it's going to take 2.7 trillion more to privatize SS then where are we going to get that extra 2.7 trillion? You going to loan it to the liars in D.C.?

Originally posted by elevatedone

So what about you guys, would you like to see this put in place or do you like the way Social Security is handled now ?

It's not really a question whether we like the way it's handled. The Social Security trust fund will run out of money in 2042, give or take a few years. I don't particularly want to see our elderly population at that time become starving and homeless. The only way to stop it is through vast additional infusions of $$. There are only so many ways to do that. Privatization, although not perfect, is the most palatable of the options (the others being increases in payroll taxes, decreases in benefits paid, or the use of monies from general federal revenues).

Originally posted by GrndLkNatv
If he ever wanted to piss off the over 65 crowd, the WWII generation, he has just done it. They will tear into pieces over this. Unlike the rest of this countries population, the old folks here don't take s..t from anyone.

I doubt he will crash on this plan. You see, I won't have sopcial security (more than likely) when I retire. Yet I am pouring my money into it. It is about time something is done about this. It is a sound plan. It even leaves you the right to "will" the money stored to family members and such, rather than the whole...when you die its gone thing.

Bush is elected into his last term...he should be less comprimising to anti-tax cut liberals.

Oh, and GrndLkNatv.....

Pop quiz! The national debt you speak of.... who are we in debt too. Be specific.

Say he let's the under 40 crowd take the SS money and invest it on wall street. So we do, the folks in big business like Enron, take your cash, squander it, then what happens? What are you going to do then? Have any of you thought about that? You see this is a bill for the rich jerks on wall street looking to rake more money out of pockets of the stupid. When I say this I say this with knowledge as my family runs one of the companies looking to take your money when this happens. You middle class folks just never figure it out, always looking for a quick way to make a buck all the while getting screwed out of your assets.

Our government is in debt to those who loan them money, in bonds, Treasuries, Overnight paper, Zero Coupons, etc. Most of that debt is our own at this time, but a good portion is owned by the Chinese, Japanese and the UK. It's all based on the masons theory of credit which was created during the crusades so that the catholic church could finance their battles in the middle east even when they didn't have the money or assets to do so anymore which led to the King of France making masonry illegal which led to the capture of DeMolay and the burning at the stake of him as well, etc..... All the way down to the current monetary system in this country and the federal reserve bank which is not a US Government Entity.

[edit on 11-11-2004 by GrndLkNatv]

This is nothing more than a test balloon. I preferred where we were around the end of 2000 when Social Security was solvent as-is for the next 75 years despite Bush's mocking of the concept of a "lock box" and the GOP push to move Federal collections into the stock market.

Who (other than Osama) didn't breath a sigh of relief on 9/11 that bad idea had failed to take steam?

And what have we learned since? Nothing.

Except to move in smaller steps toward the GOP goal of eliminating Social Security. Okay, so moving 2% of one's retirement only creates a 2 trillion shortfall (assuming the stock market makes money). You know it doesn't always make money, but the GOP isn't thinking past the stock broker windfall anyway. Then what happens? Welfare for the poor investors? :shk:

It's pretty risky if you ask me. Assuming magical capitalism dust kicks in and everything works out seems to be the "plan." When in reality I know they aren't thinking past the immediate "bump" to their own portfolios and the financial institution kick backs when this first happens.

Were I pondering a 75 year plan to send America into financial turmoil and come out of the other end with a public mandate to beg the government to take more control and adopt socialism, this is how I'd do it.

Baby steps toward disaster.

But hey if red states would rather send their retirement to blue states for safe keeping than the Federal government, don't let me stop ya. The godless yankees in Chicago and NY will take care of you just fine.

Didn't we move the capitol to DC to stop this sort of thing?

Put the funds for Social Security into gold....because Bush is driving the dollar into the ground....

With the desperate situation we are in now, the whole system will collapse when the contributions start moving to the private funds. The SS is dependant on the money we put in today for the retired group who put in yesterday. First go back to reducing the debt, then think about a change.

The only advantage is, they would not be able to buy 277 FA22s with your retirement savings.

Only a socialist system could fix these social problems. Putting social security in the hands of corporations is suicide for the people who require these services to live on.

Taking social security to the local level would fix these problems, we cannot expect a corrupt federal government to properly manage such huge amounts of wealth.

1. Require children to be financially responsible for their parents over 65.

2. Stop fomenting and carrying out wars, revolutions and toxic disease and nuclear war scenarios.

3. Refocus the entire Fed Service on pursuing Health; pursuing Truth; pursuing Justice [good people getting good outcomes]; pursuing Fairness [giving everybody a shot at Justice]; pursuing accountability for effect [and not just excuses for what the process is and does].
...Our whole Gummint is focused on disease, death, war, plundering resources away from the people who need them, destroying the atmosphere, the water, and mucking with the weather.
...It's going to take a wholesale THOUGHT-revolution to get these so-called civil servants who make wonderful salaries and benefits TO THINK ABOUT SOMEBODY BESIDES THEMSELVES.

4. We may even have to prosecute some of these leaders, jurists, lobbyists and legislators for Treason, to get them off the dime and away from profiteering off death, peddling influence and screwing taxpayers.

5. Then the matter of privatizing Social Security will be an option, and not merely another opportunity for plundering middle-class peoples' equities.

6. The globalist corruption has got to be stopped; or, we're dead in the water.

Originally posted by Emily_Cragg

...Our whole Gummint is focused on disease, death, war, plundering resources away from the people who need them, destroying the atmosphere, the water, and mucking with the weather.
...It's going to take a wholesale THOUGHT-revolution to get these so-called civil servants who make wonderful salaries and benefits TO THINK ABOUT SOMEBODY BESIDES THEMSELVES.

4. We may even have to prosecute some of these leaders, jurists, lobbyists and legislators for Treason, to get them off the dime and away from profiteering off death, peddling influence and screwing taxpayers.

You might think about the way the world has evolved before you go casting so many stones at our government. Look at the way history is written - in terms of BATTLES AND WARFARE. That is the nature of our species - to kill, rob, murder, plunder, and then call the most prolific murderers "heroes". Like Alexander the "Great". Poor boy, cried because there were no more worlds to "conquer". No more nationalities to murder.

We are one of the only nations on earth who measure our conquests in terms of advancing the human race. Medicine. Education. Art. Science. Charity.

Yet the UN lowers it's flag to half mast to honor Arafat.

Originally posted by RANT
Except to move in smaller steps toward the GOP goal of eliminating Social Security. Okay, so moving 2% of one's retirement only creates a 2 trillion shortfall (assuming the stock market makes money). You know it doesn't always make money, but the GOP isn't thinking past the stock broker windfall anyway. Then what happens? Welfare for the poor investors? :shk:

But hey if red states would rather send their retirement to blue states for safe keeping than the Federal government, don't let me stop ya. The godless yankees in Chicago and NY will take care of you just fine.

If you are counting on SS as your sole retirement income, you are a fool. And this isn't just since the last 4 years.

If you want the government (read: my tax dollars) to bail you out because you made bad investments, then you definitely belong in the blue states. Cradle to grave, that's the ticket, eh comrade?

Originally posted by Emily_Cragg
1. Require children to be financially responsible for their parents over 65.

Emily - I most often feel you're a soul sister - then I hit a wall. LOL

Re: 1 above. ...my understanding was that Social Security was established because private and corporate vampires sucked people dry then chucked 'em without a penny as a 'depleted utility' when they couldn't work anymore, ...that SS was structured as compromise justice.

...also, like various abuse and child welfare programs, such programs are intended to protect the vulnerable from potentially abusive situations (ie., elder abuse).

in an ideal world, such programs things would not be necessary, agreed, but do you see a need for transitional steps?



.

"Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living."
"Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with the world."

Originally posted by jsobecky
Look at the way history is written - in terms of BATTLES AND WARFARE. That is the nature of our species - to kill, rob, murder, plunder, and then call the most prolific murderers "heroes".

I protest! ...That is NOT "the nature of our species." It is the nature of the walking dildoes who write history - and clear evidence of penis envy.

Oral histories (for example) provide a much more realistic profile regarding the 'nature of the species' - they are most often poetic, clear, wise balancings of hard and soft and light and dark. Above all, they are broad and deep.

You are describing male Western culture. Period. There is much more to the story of humankind, some written some not. But not less real or valid because of its form.

Excuse the lecture, but it's one of my pet peeves. LOL



.

Originally posted by soficrow
I protest! ...That is NOT "the nature of our species." It is the nature of the walking dildoes who write history - and clear evidence of penis envy.

You are describing male Western culture. Period. There is much more to the story of humankind, some written some not. But not less real or valid because of its form.

You can protest all you want, but it doesn't change the facts. Male Western culture? Really? It's never happed in China, or the mideast? What about the genocide occuring in Sudan right now? And it's not solely a male charactristic - look at Winnie Mandela, she murdered her teenage lover by "necklacing" him. While her husband suffered in prison. A whore and a murderer.

And yes, it is the nature of our species. Every existing nation on earth was created out of warfare at one point in it's history.

Oral history is nice, because you can sit around the campfire and change the story to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, and there's no way to prove that your story is any less valid than the next person's.

As far as your penis envy problem - take it to Oprah.