Bush wants Americans to jump out of buildings like they did in 1929
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Bob FertikWant to meet our members? Click 'Join' above!
Every poll shows Bush is losing the Social Security battle.
But we all know that Bush hates to lose.
So now Bush is getting ugly, according to the Washington Post.
Bush concluded a three-state swing to sell his plan to restructure Social Security, warning Democratic opponents Tuesday that they will suffer political consequences if they continue to oppose his proposal without providing one of their own.
Flanked by Republican Sens. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) and John McCain (Ariz.), Bush invited Democrats "to come to the table" to help devise a solution to shore up Social Security's finances. "I believe there will be bad political consequences for people who are unwilling to sit down and talk about the issue," he said.
Democratic leaders have said repeatedly that they are willing to sit down and talk - as soon as Bush takes privatization off the table.
Why does Bush want privatization so badly? Speaking in Albuquerque, Bush offered a new reason.
During his appearance here Tuesday, Bush said that private accounts would allow more workers to reap the financial benefits that the markets could provide, and that the accounts would make workers more attuned to government policy.
"All of a sudden tax policy, spending policy, debt policy -- all of a sudden it makes a lot more sense to you if the effects of government affect your asset base," he said.
Under the current Social Security system, our "asset base" is the collective funding available to Social Security. So our "asset base" is indirectly affected by "tax policy, spending policy, debt policy". But it is not directly affected.
The only way for our "asset base" (meaning the funds in our Social Security accounts) to be directly affected would be to have those accounts invested in the financial markets, where they would fluctuate each day.
We used to have exactly that system in America before Social Security. When the stock market crashed in 1929, people who had placed their life savings in the market jumped out of tall buildings.
That's exactly why FDR and the Democrats created Social Security - so Americans would always have something to fall back upon, even if the markets crashed.
In the past two weeks, the Dow has dropped 500 points. What if it dropped 5,000 points?
Sure, Bush's catastrophic "tax policy, spending policy, debt policy" would "make a lot more sense" to us.
And we'd be jumping out of buildings again.
Does Bush want to return to 1929? It's hard to draw any other conclusion.
When will the media confront him with the real meaning of his own words?
On the lighter side, Billionaires for Bush put the entire Social Security system up for auction on Ebay.
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Comments
Privatization gives me power
Bob,
I just can't quite understand why you are being so negative on this issue. What Bush and the Republican party are trying to do is to give us the power to participate in the future of our own retirement. Just think about what this can mean to our children. They can invest 4% of their Social Security contribution any way they want and build for their future.
With this kind of investment power we can all look forward to a wonderful retirement with no worries about where the money will come from. Here's a breakdown of what we can do under this new program:
Your social security contribution today is 6.2% of your gross income up to $90,000. That is a whopping $2.48 per $1000 of monthly income. The U.S. median household income is about half of the $90,000 max for social security contribution. So just for the sake of argument let's assume $48,000 or $4,000 per month meaning the average family can invest all of $9.92 per month in the fund they choose. Now for those of us that pay the maximum we can invest $18.60 per month into our private account. What more can we ask. The Republican party is truly the party of the people.
I guess there are still a few questions that need to be asked. Like who is going to handle these funds and how much are they going to charge for their services? How many funds are there that will let you put in $2.48 or $9.92 or even $18.60 at a time? And what about people that get paid by the week instead of monthly, then each contribution is $.59 per $1000 of monthly income. What are they going to do, put the money in some cash reserve account until they have enough to buy a share of the designated fund? This could turn into an accounting nightmare.
But Hey, as Bush says, "It's your money, you should be able to control how it is invested."
Social Security by Bush
William G. Tremere
tremerew@mac.com
http://homepage.mac.com/tremerew/
410-730-6241
The Social Security sytem is not only retirment but disability and survivor benefits. TAking out money from that function will destroy the system by taking money out of the pool of money to cover these otehr areas. This is what Bush wants to do because he wants to destory all government programs. I know several Republicans who have changed to Democrats over this effort. I do not think it will play with the public as Bush and his propaganda organs - Cable News. This is dear enough to us that people are actually paing attention and using critical judgment. If we are lucky this will spread.