*:'When you die, why shouldn't your heirs get your Social Security

[AirAmFan]

benefits, rather than someone you don't know? It isn't fair!"

That's the gist, not a verbatim quote, from part of Dubya's new Social Security stump speech, just delivered in three states today, and replayed on CBS News. I think this quote provides a revealing and significant look inside Dubya's twisted, extremist, and simplistic mind on the key issue of the day.

Private insurance that would duplicate Social Security benefits would have to be based on the expected mortality and morbidity of an employee, his spouse, and his children. Social Security depends on those factors and, in addition, on the mortality, morbidity, and job prospects of everyone who works or has worked since the 1930s.

Evidently, this is the aspect of the current system that really galls Dubya and other "virtue of selfishness" Republicans. But this "intergenerational financial leverage" is what makes the current system affordable and fully funded for decades.

What do you think?

[MichiganVote]

1. I think that premise of Social Security is;one for all and all for

Bush?

[CO Liberal]

2. When Bush Dies, I Will Applaud

Loudly.

[DemoTex]

23. If I outlive him, I will make a pilgrimage.

If my liver is not shot I will swill beers, if it is shot I will swill water. But I WILL piss on his grave. I wish Bu$h no ill nor any harm, but ... a man has got to do what a man has got to do. If Bu$h outlives me, I have surrogate pissers and I will try to leave a phial of piss for this just purpose. Join me, brother?

[LiberalFighter]

3. Because they will get their's when they retire

Why should they get more than what is based on their work history?

[independentchristian]

14. Bingo!

Social Security is not an "estate"

[papau]

4. Bush lies-He gives nothing to heirs after you start taking monthly payment

If you were lucky and your account when you retire is greater than your individual account deposits, compounded at 3% per year, so that after subtracting from your account the deposits increased by 3% annually leaves you with a small amount of money, THAT MONEY THAT LEFT AFTER THE SUBTRACTION AND ONLY THAT MONEY is yours to play with.

However currently you have a very large insurance policy under Social Security that provides survivor benefits to your wife and kids.

Under Bush that is cut back and replaced with a return of your private account funds if you die before you retire - as in YOU ARE SCREWED because You just traded part of the survivor benefit for pennies on the dollar to get a small private account passed onto your heirs.

After shaking hands with a member of the Bush family, count to see if you still have 5 fingers and any rings you may have started out with.

[NC_Nurse]

5. I thought the idea was to help ALL

of the people equally and not have this ME-MINE-GIMME-GIMME bullshit that is the case in every other aspect of our country/culture.

[EST]

6. I paid in the maximum for thirty seven years.

And all of it went to people I don't know. The *idiot just doesn't understand what responsibility means.

[AirAmFan]

8. Thank you--a very powerful response. It could be the basis for

a MoveOn commercial:

Play a clip of Dubya's statement,

Then have some people just under age 55 (or whatever the cutoff becomes for paying into "privatized accounts") testify as you have, one after another.

"I've been working full-time since I was 17. Like most Americans, I paid more in Social Security payroll taxes than I did in income taxes for most of those 37 years of hard work. All the FICA money taken out of my check went to people I did not know, or to the Trust Fund. But I looked forward to getting my retirement paid by other people still working, and from the Trust Fund.

Now you want to break faith with me, and millions of people like me? Mr Bush, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO STEAL MY RETIREMENT MONEY for your rich friends on Wall Street and in insurance companies! We are not going to LET you do that!"

[Robbien]

11. If Bush's plan goes into effect 40% of everyone's contributions

put in so far will be kept by the government (except those over 55). So a person 54 who has been working for 30-35 years will have 40% of all their contributions just swiped away.

[AmandaRuth]

7. ok fine whatever

but only benefits stop when you exhaust exactly the amount you put in.


Gawd, the selfishness of pukes never never ceases to amaze me.

ME, ME, ME its allllllll about meeeeeee

[Chicago Democrat]

9. Life is for the Living... This isn't some Crap shoot, this is life.

Stop them.. Here and now...

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Your surviving spouse does get benefits -- Laura

will get benefits from your account if you die before she does, George, if you've paid into Social Security. And, since she only worked for a few years, she'll be better off drawing on your account than on hers.

Also, George, if you had died while Jenna and Barbara were small, Social Security would have paid survivor benefits to them, benefits to help Laura raise them, just as if you weren't a son of a billionaire. For the survivors of people who are not sons of billionaires, Social Security has made it possible to have a roof over their heads and food to eat.

[genius]

12. They're cutting out the widow's benefit?

[flpoljunkie]

13. Because Social Security is an insurance program, not a retirement program.

It also provides disability benefits, survivor benefits, and spousal benefits.

Get this. The bastards are spending every cent of the Social Security surplus funds on tax cuts for the rich and to pay for this insane war in Iraq. What they aim to do, is absolve the government of having to pay the guaranteed benefits enshrined by law in the Social Security program.

Bush's "ownership" society means really "you are on your own!" It is a total sham. Flim-flam man is attempting to con the Amerikun people into destroying Social Security.

Social Security can be made solvent into the next century with minor adjustments. Do not believe these con men. They are front men for Wall Street and banking interests who stand to make a killing if Congress rolls over and passes Dubya's privatization of Social Security.

[EST]

17. SS was not only solvent, but running an improving,

embarassing surplus until this gang of thieves started diddling with the taxes and the economy.Dirty buggers. By the way, Laura Bush is now a triple dipper-school marm retirement (like SS,) then social security, then fed income (since shes been appointed to *'s cabinet) plus the money they get for the rest of their lives for pres retirement. When * dies, she's REALLY fixed.

[robbedvoter]

15. Funny how our death is so proeminent in all BFEE plans - whether

it's Social Sec, wars or 911.

"Asked by Woodward how history would judge the war, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."

[Lisa]

16. using the same logic, should I be able to pick and choose ...

... who gets health care in my society? I'm Canadian, and I've paid a lot more into our public health insurance system than I've used (thanks to good luck, and the care of my parents who ensured proper nutrition etc.).

I can just imagine confronting the late Tommy Douglas, who founded our medicare system, with these examples ...

There's one guy I know on my street who had a lawn sign for a political party I don't agree with. I saw him getting out of his car with a cast on his foot, last week. Should I subsidize his treatment? After all, he wanted those tax cuts, and the heck with anything else, so why should I chip in when he can probably afford it himself?

There's a lady in my office who's a diabetic, and on the verge of retirement. Let's face it, she's not going to be able to hold a job much longer -- why should I pay for her medication when I could invest in fixing the busted collarbone of a promising young hockey player who could bring glory and high tax earnings for our country?

Oh, and there's a friend of the family who makes (and drinks) his own wine. It's supposed to be "healthy" now, but that's just what some scientists say, and he does seem to have a lot of it around! In the old days, faith-based charities used to come around to people's houses to make sure that there was nothing objectionable going on (like drinking, cussing, or sex) before they doled out the aid. Maybe we think twice about treating this guy for any health problems that might be his own fault?

At which point, Tommy Douglas would probably intervene, shake me a little (but gently), and remind me that the universality of the system was adopted just so we wouldn't be at the mercy of other people's priorities and whims. (We borrowed the concept from the Americans, who had come up with Social Security some time earlier.) Trying to keep all the benefits for yourself, your own family, people who agree with you, or any other subset of the population really goes against the concept of building a more caring society, that the New Deal and other progressive ideas were advocating.

[EST]

18. Well said. n/t

[DemBones DemBones]

19. Agreed. nt

[AirAmFan]

20. Thanks--Valuable and eloquent. I'd never heard of Tommy Douglas

before--now I at least have a name to ggogle some time when I want some comparative Canadian historical perspective.

Did Canadian social insurance evolve at the province level, the way Wisconsin led the way before Washington followed suit in the 1930s?

[Lisa]

21. some more about Douglas's work

http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/

He was premier of Saskatchewan -- a prairie province that was hit hard by the Depression. As a Baptist minister, he tried to help people and concluded that there was only so much charities could do -- so he went into politics, and headed the first socialist government in North America.

His daughter Shirley married Canadian actor Donald Sutherland -- Kiefer (of the TV show "24") is his grandson. I've heard that when Eleanor Roosevelt visited Canada and met Tommy Douglas, she told Shirley "look after that man, he's very special".

p.s. yes, for a while Saskatchewan was the only province that had medicare -- until the federal government decided to make it available nationwide. Even today, though, it's designated a provincial responsibility (so there are some funding constraints because the feds have cut back on the cash transfers to pay for it). The health card I carry is marked "British Columbia".

I didn't know that about Wisconsin -- interesting!

[AirAmFan]

22. Thanks! South of your border, we'd say that Douglas was your

Bob LaFollette. See http://www.postcardsfrom.com/fun/fun-wi.html for a postcard-size summary of some of his progressive ideas, which took three decades to get to Washington.

Don't believe the last sentence of that URL, though. Under Governor Tommy Thompson, who now is Dubya's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Wisconsin led the nation again, but in the wrong direction! Families are being broken up by radical "welfare reform", which has turned millions of dollars in poor children's food and shelter into regressive "tax cuts".

[Lisa]

24. well, Saskatchewan had Colin Thatcher and Grant Devine ...

... so it wasn't all clear sailing. But I guess having people like LaFollette and Douglas around more than makes up for that!

Being unmarried and an only child, I consider the people of Canada to be my "heirs". (The bonus is, I don't have to worry about whether they will show up for Christmas dinner, or squabble about who gets what piece of furniture after I die!)

[dflprincess]

25. When my dad died I did get his Social Security

It's called survivor's benefits. I wish someone would rub President Bozo's nose in this part of the system.

I was 11 when my dad died and I was able to collect until I was 22 because I was in college. Until I turned 18, the check was sent to my mother after that it was sent to me. I wouldn't have gotton through school without it. Thanks to Reagan, the benefits now cut off at 17 or 18.


If I die before I retire no one will get my benefits because I'm not married and have no children. And that doesn't bother me a damn bit. I can't see any reason why the heirs I do have (nieces and nephews) should expect to collect anything from my SS account.

[lonestarnot]

26. because the government NEEDS the money for WAR! n/t

[Capn Sunshine]

27. This is really about replacing the Baby Boomer $ in the stock market

If he just could figure out a way to say

" Wall Street equity boys are in deep shit! Baby Boomers retiring is gonna create a huge deficit of buyers!"

Without creating a run on every brokerage in the world, he would.
Instead they come up with this weak ass scheme.

Pure and simple: this insures a constant inflow of cash and buyers to replace the baby boom sellers as they exit the market at retirement and go into fixed income investments.

If you do the math, it does NOTHING to help or save Social Security; in fact, it makes things a little worse, and cuts benefits to boot.

But you already knew that because everything the neocons do is based on a lie.