Bush: Reform Social Security Now
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141727,00.htmlWASHINGTON — President Bush said Thursday that "now is the time to confront Social Security (search)" and vowed to send Congress "a tough budget" early next year to hold keep down federal spending. "You will see fiscal discipline exercised inside the Oval Office this coming budget cycle," the president told a White House economic conference during the second day of the two-day event. Ready to head into his second term in the White House, the president has made Social Security reform a cornerstone of his new agenda as his administration grapples with a projected $3.7 trillion, 75-year shortfall for the program.
Away from the conference, AFL-CIO (search ) President John Sweeney called Wall Street's support for partial privatization a conflict of interest and "a risky scheme for America, but a sure bet for the financial-services industry."
In a letter to the Securities Industry Association (search ), Sweeney asked the group to disavow Bush's proposed overhaul.
"Will the financial services industry behave as professionals with a duty to speak candidly to the investing public, or will elements of the industry once again seek to make money at the expense of their customers, only this time on a much grander scale?" Sweeney wrote.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE AFL-CIO WEB SITE:
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/socialsecurity/ns09292004.cfmWall Street firms would enjoy a whopping $940 billion windfall while retirees would see their benefits tumble, if President George W. Bush pushes through his plan to privatize Social Security, according to a new report.
“This would be by far the largest windfall for financial managers in American financial history,” says Austan Goolsbee, the economics professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, who wrote the report, The Fees of Private Accounts and the Impact of Social Security Privatization on Financial Managers.