Bush: "My plan will do nothing to solve S.S. financial problems"

[stray cat]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/politics/06social.html?th

"In presenting his plan to let working Americans divert part of their payroll taxes into private retirement accounts, the Bush administration now says the proposal will do nothing to solve Social Security's financial problems".

Its the cuts in benefits that Bush isn't bothering to mention that is most important to Bush.

[CindyDale]

1. Overall his plans tend to create problems, don't they?

[EVDebs]

2. THIS SHOULD BE ON HEADLINES ACROSS AMERICA !

What were they thinking ?????

This is the MBA from Harvard ???? Were is Al Gore's Lockbox key ...Bush destroyed it with his 'trifecta' !

[Blower]

5. Where the hell is the Democratic party--they should quote this! n/t

[snippy]

3. Bush should have to register as a sex offender because of his SS plan.

He obviously has an uncontrollable desire to rape the American people.

[jimfromthebronx10469]

4. I propose...

a bill that would disallow any tampering with social security until the federal budget is balanced and a million new jobs on the horizen.Not to forget a peaceful world to live in...:mad: :crazy: :dem:

[BlueInRed]

6. Here's a good article on the current SS situation

This is from a couple of years ago, but the explanation is excellent.
http://www.tnr.com/091701/chait091701.html

[Dark]

7. .3 percent in fees?

The worker could still come out ahead under these terms. If the account were to earn an average 4.9 percent a year after inflation, minus 0.3 percent in fees - the figure often cited by White House officials based on estimates by the Social Security actuaries of the expected returns of a mixed portfolio of stocks and bonds - the worker's piggy bank would grow to more than $188,000 in today's dollars if he invested the maximum allowed, according to calculations by Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

That's an enormous amount of money, when multiplied by 200 million people, and I'd be willing to wager that it WILL go up...

[Wink]

8. Let's just say his plan works.....

Who's gonna work at Walmart if they have a decent retirement? Aren't retiree's (like illegal workers in Bush's eyes) just taking low paying jobs that ordinary American workers won't and can't live on. Walmart will have to hire illegals and/or grammar school students to fill their shelves.

[warpigs]

9. 19 yrs old making $38,566????

From the article:

"Take somebody who will be 19 this year and will enter the workforce in 2011 - the first year in which younger workers will be allowed to open personal accounts - earning $38,566 in today's dollars, what the Social Security Administration calls the "medium wage." That is the figure, annually adjusted to reflect the rising cost of living, that the Social Security Administration uses to calculate the effect of Mr. Bush's plan on the typical American worker."

What 19 year-old is making the median wage?? Due to the compounding effect of interest, this would overstate the amount the worker would have at retirement. The actual calculation should be done using the median wage at each age. This is an outright manipulation of reality!!


The way SS works now, the benefit you get is based on your wages at retirement (or the last few years) and not your average salary over your life - since people (typically) are paid more at the end of their career the comparison should be based on that.

Also, what happens to someone who stays home and cares for children and then enters the workforce at a later age say 45-50? The current SS system would treat them no differently than anyone else at retirement - but this proposed system they would have significantly less. That is why you can't compare the "average" or "median" case for a social insurance program - you need to look at all (or majority ) of each types of workers.

[KaliTracy]

10. so by the age of 25, 38K will be "medium income?" I'm just hitting

40, have 2 degrees, and just went over the 37K mark as a technical writer (small company -- and we deal with Airports and Airlines -- so I've floated on wage freeze since 9/11). I've been with the company for 6 years come March, and they just increased my wage to more reflect the market -- but not even close to what the market should be. What type of job would a 25 yr old have to come into the workforce at that wage?

[Merope215]

12. Consulting or i-banking

I'm in college, and my friend, who's going to graduate in May, is going to start off at an international banking/consulting firm at $60K with a $15K signing bonus, and I imagine in 5 years he'll be well over the $100 mark. Of course, those are only good jobs for people with no souls.

(No offense to any consultants or i-bankers here, but when you're 22 years old and can't wait to start screwing people over for the Man, you've got some pretty big problems in my book.)

It's certainly nowhere NEAR the median for people my age, of course, although for graduates of my school I think it's actually pretty standard, but it is possible. Which is not to say that this SS plan isn't completely full of shit.

[cornermouse]

17. Statistician for one.

Guessing maybe a pharamcist? You're talking starting wages, right?

[StuckinBFE]

11. Out of touch with reality

I think what they were saying is take a 19 year old today and in six years they will be 25 and making $38,566 a year.

This is still over exaggerated, I am 24 and most of my friends are graduating from college this year and a good many of them have engineering degrees and trust me very few are making $38k a year. This isn't even counting the people I have known though other jobs who defiantly don't make close to $38k a year. My parents barely make $38k a year. I think the government assumes that everyone has great connections and has great jobs because there kids have great connections and great jobs. They need to get reconnected with reality.

[Merope215]

13. exactly

I should have mentioned that those people I was talking about *do* have those kinds of connections, and that it sucks that the asshats in charge are pretending that everyone else's kids have the same kinds of opportunities their own privileged brats did.

[blackspade]

14. so...

So they are thinking that a 19 year old today will inter the workforce in 2011? That would mean that they are 26 when they inter the work force? Are these guys stupid?
Also who enters the work force at 38,000 a year now anyway.
Hell I have a degree and 13 years of experience in my field and still don't make that!

This whole SS debacle is beyond the pale.

[Martin Eden]

15. The plan will do exactly what it's designed to do ...

... which is to destroy SS.

The approaching "crisis" is primarily a fiscal problem, which the Bush plan makes considerably worse. The SS trust fund will be drained much more quickly as funds are diverted to private accounts, which may or may not in a few decades provide a greater return for those invested in them.

However, the younger generation is still getting a raw deal because they will be saddled with the $trillions in debt incurred by the transition, which does nothing about the funding of payments to the older generation except to drain the source of those funds.

By collapsing the fiscal health of SS with this privatization scheme, younger people will be even more convinced that SS will not be there for them when they retire. This is the message the GOP has been pounding for years, and it will become a self-fulling prophecy as the younger generation opts for what they believe is all they can get.

What they won't get however, is much of anything from the percentage they continue to pay into the SS system, because it will truly be bankrupt by the time they retire. Even if the private accounts perform better than expected, they will receive less overall and will be burdened by increased national debt.

This may sound like an awful result but it is exactly what the right feels is necessary to kill off what has been a successful government program they've detested since it was created 70 years ago. Grover Norquist's strategy is taking place before our eyes -- the only way to kill a popular government program is to "starve the beast."

[marcologico]

20. You got it. They think they have to kill SS to finish off the Dems

for good, as if BBV and terrorism aren't enough.

[sandnsea]

16. Destroy it because it's "communist"

They've been trying to do this since its inception.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=331

[Blaq Dem]

18. Bush's Plan May Be LETHAL

There is another alternative way to cure SS. That's by reducing the number of people who are up to get it. You see, if the Bush Cult keep sending our young to get killed off in wars as he snatches Social Security benefits from old folks and dump toxins into our environment, then there won't be anyone left to collect.

As for as Baby Boomers are concerned, expect them to drop dead like flies soon. Maybe from some mysterious CIA concocted diseases or something.

The Bush Cult doesn't give a damn about human life.

[AuntiBush]

19. Isn't anyone here listening to their Democrat Senators

Representatives and so many other's like AARP, the ACLU, Unions clear across the nation, the Brookings Institute, almost every Newspaper around the country, and how about Penn State... here's a variant of links:

Penn State:
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/opinion/10828917.htm
What College kids think about this:
http://www.thedailyaztec.com/main.cfm?include=results
Truthout about SSI:
http://www.truthaboutsocialsecurity.com/
The American Prospect:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=Social%20Security
AARP Article 1:
http://www.aarp.org/research/press/presscurrentnews/Articles/item696286499.html
AARP Article 2:
http://www.aarp.org/financial-planningretire/Articles/a2002-10-03-RetirementIncomeSocialSecurity
Where AARP Stands:
http://www.aarp.org/socialsecurity/Articles/a2004-12-01-social_security_wherewestand.html
The Press & Sun Bulletin:
http://www.pressconnects.com/today/opinion/stories/op013005s144767.shtml
and their ideas on a Ownership Society: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/01/30/build/business/65-investments-study.inc
From Franklin D. Roosevelt's Grandson:
http://www.thereisnocrisis.com/node/1974
The Pittsburg Post:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05027/448526.stm

Jeez, I could go on and on. In as a history major I know, FDR was a WALL STREET LAWYER. Do you think he would have set SSI up to help widows, disabled, and Americans for retirement if he didn't know what he was doing... SSI's surplus has been spent by the man in charge. That's the issue.

I feel so bad that as Democrats you're falling for this crap.

Maybe you need a kindly reminder of what this man is about: MOVIE of him LAUGHING w/rich friends about finding NO WMD...
http://www.truthandhope.org/Funny.mov

:think:

Lastly, as younger folks keep in mind that if you must retire early, you could end up on welfare, or worse. Do you're homework and believe in your Democrat leaders. They're the only ones up there trying to protect you.

[marcologico]

21. yes. n/t