What was Clinton's plan for SS ?? -Freepers are going nuts.

[The Doctor.]

Everyone is saying that "Clinton wanted to do this too, so the liberals should stop whining."

I don't remember the specifics of his plan... can't find it that easily either.

Anyone know?

[LiberalFighter]

1. Clinton wanted to save it... not destroy it

New Strategy on Social Security
With Some Risk, Bush Officials Invoke Clinton, Moynihan
WP 24 Jan 2005

In public speeches recently, N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten, both cited the same passage of a 1998 Clinton speech at Georgetown University.

"This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation," Clinton said in the speech.

But neither Mankiw nor Bolten cited another passage from the same address: "Before we spend a penny on new programs or tax cuts, we should save Social Security first. I think it should be the driving principle . . . Do not have a tax cut. Do not have a spending program that deals with that surplus. Save Social Security first."

[LiberalFighter]

16. President Clinton's Remarks on Social Security

President Clinton's Remarks on Social Security- 1993-1998

President Clinton's Remarks on Social Security- 1999
President Clinton's Remarks on Social Security- 2000

[LiberalFighter]

18. SSA --- IN-DEPTH RESEARCH Reports & Studies

IN-DEPTH RESEARCH Reports & Studies

[LiberalFighter]

22. CNN continues to mislead on Social Security

On the February 3 edition of CNN's Live From..., Phillips played a clip from Clinton's 1999 State of the Union address in which Clinton proposed "to invest the surplus to save Social Security," then wrongly asserted that his "idea is the same" as Bush's proposal. In fact, the proposals were very different. Clinton did not propose encouraging workers to divert payroll taxes into private accounts or cutting guaranteed benefits (though he did not rule out the latter). Instead, Clinton's proposal to invest some trust fund assets in the stock market was a specific attempt to avoid "drastic cuts in benefits" -- like those Bush will likely propose -- by allowing the trust fund to earn a slightly higher rate of return in the stock market. Clinton also rejected proposals that would "drain resources from Social Security," thus avoiding trillions of dollars in transition costs.

Source: Media Matters: CNN continues to mislead on Social Security

[LiberalFighter]

23. Moved

[LiberalFighter]

24. The plan increases the possibility of fraud and abuse.

Individual accounts that permit account owners to place their money in a wide range of investment vehicles raise the likelihood of fraud and abuse in the sales of stock. Arthur Levitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has noted that " system of self-directed individual accounts would require an unprecedented level of broad-scale policing of the equity markets. Otherwise, fraud and sales practice abuses could be perpetrated against society's most vulnerable investors" (Washington Post, November 16, 1998). Levitt reports that in England, reform of the retirement system and creation of individual accounts led to "billions of dollars in losses for investors" through fraud and other abuses.

• The plan encourages risky investments. Workers are guaranteed basic Social Security benefits under this plan even if they lose all the money in their individual account through poor investments. Workers receive only one-quarter of the gains made on an individual account since, for every dollar received, 75 cents is given up in basic Social Security benefits. Because there is just a small penalty for investment losses while very big investment gains are required to produce any noticeable rise in retirement income, risky investments (which have a high potential for large losses but also for large gains) will be very attractive.

Decisions about the future of Social Security must not be based on overestimates of future returns in the stock market nor on a less-than-complete understanding of the added costs and risks associated with individual accounts. If the country decides that it is appropriate that workers' core retirement money - Social Security - be invested in the stock market, then the most efficient way to accomplish this goal would be through the Trust Fund, as the president proposes.

SOURCE

[LiberalFighter]

25. Social Security Administration costs

Under a privatized Social Security system in Chile, administrative costs eat up 15% to 20% of workers' pensions. In Great Britain, costs are running above 40%. In contrast, administrative costs of the U.S. Social Security system are less than 2% of contributions.

[stray cat]

2. Retirement plans as supplements to social security but not replacements?

I'm not sure of the details.

[The Doctor.]

4. I've found this so far....

"The most controversial element of Mr. Clinton's plan calls for creating a new government mechanism to oversee investment of hundreds of billions of dollars in the stock market."

Sounds eerily familiar.

http://www.enquirer.com/clinton/cli_social_security_plan.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. That doesn't sound like personal investments.

Sounds like plans for the government to secure the safety of the investments.

[papau]

14. True - the private voluntary investment in equity via addon tax does end

up at the same place - namely a private account.

But along the way it does not destroy Soc Security.

A rather key difference.

[noamnety]

3. I bookmarked this thread a while back

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3074185

[The Doctor.]

13. Good thread - Thanks! nt

[Warpy]

5. As I recall, Clinton once proposed putting overpayments to FICA

into a government controlled mutual fund, an idea he held at the apex of the market boom in the 90s but discarded pretty quickly. He was casting about for ways to keep FICA overpayments out of the general fund, not piratizing them.

He'd raised taxes on the richest, you see, and knew the country was headed toward fiscal solvency, and the overpayments would have to be protected from rapacious congressmen who wanted to use them to pay off their contributors.

By the time Gore came along, the "lockbox" idea had gained favor, since there was no way Congress could get their hands on something that was held separately from the general fund.

Then Bush cheated his way in, and now they're all lying about what could have been.

[hootinholler]

6. As I remember,

He wanted to take some of the budget surplus, which has now mysteriously evaporated, and mark it for SS, invest it in a mutual fund to aid the overall trust fund. Not a personal account scheme.

That is very different from what BFEE has proposed.

-Hoot

[PA Democrat]

19. Yes, that's what he proposed- invest a small portion of the budget surplus

the state of our union was stronger than ever, and I outlined a program, a series of initiatives to create a secure retirement for the baby boom generation. I proposed to commit 60 percent of the surplus over the next fifteen years to extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund until 2055, a small portion of it to be invested in mutual funds.

Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.842 Jun 21, 2004

http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Bill_Clinton_Social_Security.htm

[MoonRiver]

7. Do freepers really not want social security for their parents & themselves

Most of them are probably not 1%er fat Repuke cats. Guess they'd rather starve in their old age than go off the RNC talking points. :crazy:

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Freepers are like those monster men that were created in Beastman.

Their brains are filled with pure hatred and all they want to do is kill and destroy. They don't dig deeply anything and don't ever look for the facts. Scrabble-heads. They pick every other word out of a sentence to change the meaning of what was originally said.

[MoonRiver]

21. Guess they also believe that their blinded by the right diehard loyalty

will be "rewarded" by the RNC, in lieu of all the social security money they have paid and are paying into the system they want to destroy. That delusion is their imaginary safety net, lol.

[mermaid]

26. But Most Of Them

THINK they are!!

I saw somewhere, where fully 20% of the American populace believes it is in the top 1 percent of this country.

They REALLY DO think that they ARE fat-cat 1-percenters!!

They've been brainwashed into thinking it.

Most of them have the trappings of the top one percent...but, in order to have it, they are mortgaged up to their eyeballs, and maxed on all their lines of credit. Wait till reality hits! And PRAY it isn't too late!

[EST]

8. Clinton's interim plan (if you could call it that)

Was balanced budgets, full employment, and a booming, improving economy, producing budget surplusses, thus pushing any crisis of SS due to the boomers further and further into the future. Eventually there would have been no crisis at all, but the principle of SS would be so entrenched into our thinking that the evil forces would stand no chance at all of destroying this country and all the people in it. They have to strike immediately with crisis after crisis to keep their vile mission afloat.

[Wilber_Stool]

9. It's probably in the links but

among other things, he wanted to use the yearly surplus to invest in the market or in what he called a locked box.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

10. The "messenger" DOES matter

Based on track records on both the domestic and foreign affairs agenda, even if Clinton's plan was exactly the same as W's it doesn't matter. There is a 'no confidence' vote here on W's ability to do this correctly.

[papau]

12. I've posted a bit on this - with a bit of detail. But the one paragraph

summary is:

invest Social Security Trust Fund Assets in equities so as to improve the return on assets held by the trust (I believe he wanted to so invest no more than 15% of the Trust assets.

and ADDON ACCOUNTS (not Bush carve out of the Soc Sec payroll tax accounts)

Clinton amd Monyihan would add to the payroll tax process the ability for folks to withhold additional monies that would go into private accounts administered by the gov but invested in non-government bond assets.

Montihan's variation was a 1% match for the first 1%, with a cut in Soc Sec payroll taxes during this period when we are running huge Social Security Tax surplus, followed by a Social Security Tax increase as the pay as you go after 2020 requires more pay - he also wanted a downward adjustment to benefits after 2020.

Clinton's variation was again an addon voluntary contribution outside of the Social Security System, and again with a match by the government while we had a budget surplus. It was a way to spend that evil budget surplus on the non-rich.

Folks that say "Clinton wanted to do this" where "this" is the Bush Plan (assumed to be option 2 from the 2001 Commission report because the WhiteHouse gives a wink wink nod nod when you ask if it is option 2) are in err.

:-)

[DaveinMD]

17. he also

wanted to use the surplus to shore up the trust fund. Remember that. A surplus. Of course Bush gave away that surplus with a tax cut for the super wealthy.

[Moochy]

20. Freeperville USA

Sorry my other thread sent you to freeperville Dr Eldritch :)

I think focusing on freepers as the enemy would be a big mistake, but its kinda fun to visit the zoo every now and again.

Clinton and Gore both had been mocked for the social security lockbox, yet Bush has balanced the budget every year since 2001 by dipping heavily into Grandma Millie's retirement fund.

Yeah, that Grandma Millie.

Moochy