SSA.GOV posts Clinton 98 speeches on Soc Sec problem-and media lies & says

[papau]

Clinton endorsed a "carve out of Social Security payroll tax private accounts".

If Tim Russert lies, must all those in the media also repeat the same lie?

The only truth in this NBC LIE is that the Clinton 98 speeches did indeed have Clinton saying that there was a possible problem 32 years down the road with Social Security due to fewer workers per beneficiary and due to longer lifespans, and that when Clinton said that, no one said there is no chance there will be a crisis in 35 years.

After that lone truth, the media lies so as to sell the Bush destruction of Social Security

READ THE SPEECHES AT:
http://www.ssa.gov/history/clntstmts.html#Gaston

Here is a quick summary. Over and over Clinton refers to the out year problem - and the need for minor changes now.

And over and over again he says there must 5 principles met by an proposed change.

"I believe, first of all, we have to reform Social Security in a way that strengthens and protects a guarantee for the 21st century. We should not abandon a basic program that has been one of the greatest successes in our country's history.

Second, we should maintain universality and fairness. For half a century, this has been a progressive guarantee for citizens; we have to keep it that way. It was not until 1985 that the poverty rate among seniors was lower than the poverty rate for the population of America as a whole. It is an astonishing achievement of our society that it is now so much lower, and we should not give it up.

Third, Social Security must provide a benefit that people can count on. Regardless of the ups and downs of the economy or the financial markets, we have to provide a solid and dependable foundation of retirement security.

Fourth, Social Security must continue to provide financial security for disabled and low income beneficiaries. We can never forget the one in three Social Security beneficiaries who are not retirees.

And fifth, anything we do to strengthen Social Security now must maintain our hard-won fiscal discipline. It is the source of much of the prosperity we enjoy today."


AND HE NEVER ADVOCATED A SPECEFIC PLAN:
"And I think that the most important thing now is if I advocate a specific plan right now, then all the debate will be about that. The first thing we've got to do is to get the American people solidly lined up behind change. Let's stick with these basic principles I've outlined, and I want to encourage other people to come forward with their ideas. In December, we'll all sit down, come up with our -- we'll all put our various ideas on the table, and we'll begin hammering out a plan that we can present in January."

"Now, in 1983, when the Social Security reforms were passed, it is true that the government was collecting more in Social Security taxes than were needed in any given year to pay for that. So rather than raise other taxes to pay for other governmental expenses, the rest of the government borrowed and gave a bond to the Social Security trust fund, with the full faith and credit of the United States behind it, a legal obligation to pay back the money with interest to the Social Security trust fund when it was needed to pay out. And so there is no reason to believe that all the money that's been taken out since 1983 will not be paid back in as soon as it's needed to meet the legal obligations of the Social Security trust fund.

By doing that, by borrowing that money and paying it back, we didn't do anything to affect the obligations of the fund to pay Social Security recipients in the future. But we did keep the government from borrowing more money out in the private sector, competing with the private sector for money, and running interest rates up. So I think on balance it's been a safe and sound thing to do, and I do not believe that the raid has occurred on the Social Security trust fund. It would be a raid if the money were not paid back when it's due to be paid to you, but the money will be paid back when it's due to be paid to you."
"Well, first of all, let me say that we're having this forum today in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a number of experts whose opinions range across the spectrum from believing that we should have a large portion -- some believe almost half of the present payroll tax -- converted over a period of 20 or 25 years into individual investment accounts, to those who believe maybe you should have a small percentage tax of payroll tax or a small annual payment to people for individual investment accounts, to those who believe that the Social Security trust fund itself should invest, beginning with a modest amount, a limited amount of its funds to increase the rate of return. So let me try to answer all these questions.

First of all, what about individual accounts and how could we set them up? There are, I think, basically two basic options that have been options that have been advanced. One is, should we take a one percent, or two percent, or some percentage of the payroll tax and, instead of putting that into Social Security, put it into a mandatory savings account for workers and then they can invest it in stocks if they like? What's the downside of that? The downside of that is twofold. Basically, your investments might lose money and you might not be so well-off with them when you retire, so that the combination of your investment fund, plus your guaranteed Social Security fund might be smaller than would have otherwise been the case.

The second issue that's related to that is that if individuals are investing like this, the administrative costs of managing it can be quite high -- much, much higher than Social Security -- so that even though you might earn a higher rate of return, a lot of it would be taken right back from the people who are handling your accounts. So we have to work through that.

What about having the government do it? What about having everybody have an account -- a number, in effect, attached to their name for this money, but having some public source invest this money? Congressman Castle asked a question, as well as Congressman Price, and I think Mr. Weber in North Dakota asked this question.

Now, the virtue of that is that if the government were making these investments, you could do two things. Number one, you'd have much lower administrative costs. Number two, you could protect people who retire in the bad years, because you would average the benefits. And as I said, as we know, over any 30- or 40-year period -- and the average person will work 40 years -- the average rate of returns are higher. So you could always reap the average rate of return.

Now, if you were a particularly brilliant investor, you'd get less than you would have if you'd done it own your own, but on the other hand, you wouldn't get burned. And if you happen to be among unfortunate people who retired in a long period where the market wasn't doing well, like it was in between 1966 and 1982, you'd still be held harmless for that because of the overall performance of the market.

People worry about having the government invest that much money. There may be a way to set up an independent board immunized from political pressure to do it, but sill, that would be a whole lot of money coming from, in effect, one source, going into the stock market.

So we're looking at the experience of Canada and some other countries to see what we can learn about that. And we're also looking at the experience of Chile, as a place where they've used individual accounts, to see what the pluses and minuses are.

I think -- what I would like to say is, if we go down this road, we need to make sure that behind this there's still a rock-solid guarantee of a threshold retirement that people will be able to survive on. And then we can debate the relative merits of these individual accounts versus individual guarantees within these bigger units. But I think I've given you the main arguments, pro and con, of both the individual accounts and the government units -- government investment -- I'm sorry."

"But we all know that there are basically only three options: We can raise taxes again, which no one wants to do because the payroll tax is regressive. Over half the American people who are working pay more payroll tax than income tax today. We can cut benefits and it might be all right for someone like me who has a good retirement plan, but it's not a very good idea for someone like Pauline. Or we can work together to try to find some way to increase the rate of return. And there are a number of options that we are discussing."
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SO LET US INVEST THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUNDS IN EQUITY AND GIVE THE BONDS BACK TO TREASURY. Redeeming the bonds would end all this crap about there being no assets. And a higher return via equity ends the the early run out of the Trust Fund.