The Free-Lunch Bunch: Bush team's secret plan to "reform" Social Security

[Qutzupalotl]

The Free-Lunch Bunch
The Bush team's secret plan to "reform" Social Security.
By Ron Suskind
Posted Friday, Feb. 27, 2004, at 4:27 PM PT

During the 2000 campaign, candidate George W. Bush seemed particularly confident about his ability to pay for Social Security reform. Despite independent estimates that creating the kind of "voluntarily" private accounts he envisioned could cost more than $1 trillion, Bush consistently took the position that he could reform Social Security for free, without undermining promises to baby boomers anticipating retirement over the next several decades.

Why was Bush so sure of himself? According to documents unearthed yesterday from the trove of 19,000 files given to me by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and a bit of additional probing, candidate Bush and later President Bush believed in the "Lindsey Plan." These documents show us what the president thought about Social Security reform at the only moment over the past three years—the fall of 2001—when he was fully engaged with this issue.

Larry Lindsey, Bush's tutor on economics during the campaign and later chairman of the White House's National Economic Council, devised a scheme based on creative accounting principles. Essentially, it proposed that the government would issue substantial new debt to sustain old-style benefits. This debt would be serviced and paid down by confiscating revenues from the higher returns from those opting for new-style personal accounts.

more:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096337/

[yolatengo]

1. why is this different from 401(k)?

If they don't take if from 'personal savings accounts' ginned up to
'save' SS, they'll eventually take it from 401(k) values.

Every idiot middle class Republican thinks "yeah, kill SS, I don't care;
I've got a big fat 401(k) that'll be there when I retire, tax free and like,
everyone but me can go hang".

Every idiot upper class Republican thinks "why should I contribute a
CENT to SS? I've got tons of savings; I'll probably off-shore it long before
the sh*t hits the fan, then when I'm old; I not only won't have to pay into
dead SS, but my lifetime of untaxed, offshore $$$$ will be untouchable!"

So, when Jenna Bush wins the election of 2024, we're all going to find the
"save America tax" imposed on us. Middle class? Saved 401(k) all your
life? Didn't expect to get SS anyway? Weeeeeeeell, not only are you RIGHT
about not getting any SS, but guess what? We've decided to TAX YOUR
401(k) WITHDRAWALS AT 72%! Someone's gotta pay to clean up the
mess my daddy made back in '06".

Should'a moved it all off-shore back in the 'aughts' like we did, dummy!
So all the suburban, middle class DOPES who knuckledragged to the
voting booths all their lives will be in for a rude awakening. Course,
Jenna will blame immigrants or the Chinese Empire or aliens or something,
and the children of these dopes will keep right on voting GOP...

Bigby

[reprehensor]

2. *bump* n/t