Posted on 11/09/2007 11:20:17 AM PST by jaybeegee
Here's the new plan Fred Thompson will announce later today:
The Plan
Since its inception, Social Security has done a good job of reducing poverty rates among the elderly, reducing them from 35% in 1959 to 9.4% in 2006. The current program, however, is fiscally unsustainable. Social Security actuaries warn that if nothing is done, the Social Security Trust Fund will run out of money around 2041. When that happens, retirees will face an immediate 23 percent cut in their benefits. Or, Congress could change the law and impose a 30% increase in taxes just to sustain the promised benefit level. Without question, therefore, future generations of Americans will not have the same retirement system that current seniors enjoy available to them unless the Social Security program is transformed and saved. Few young workers today have confidence that Social Security will be there for them when they retire.While 2041 sounds as if it is far off, one-third of the people now in their fifties and the great majority of people younger than 50 will be collecting benefits when Social Security runs out of money thirty-four years from now. Fred Thompson believes that we cannot afford to wait, because the longer we do the larger the problem grows. Rather, we need to take action now to save and protect Social Security and put it on a sustainable path for our children and grandchildren. The longer we delay reform of the current system, the more draconian the reforms will have to be.
We still have time to save Social Security, protect it, and provide a more secure retirement for all American workers...if we act now.
(Excerpt) Read more at fredthompsonnews.blogspot.com ...
And the plan is...?
1) Create the personal accounts plan similar to the one that Bush wanted to implement, and
2) Start putting in place a mechanism to prevent the current system from going bankrupt.
As much as I would like to see Social Security go away once and for all, I understand how impractical that would be -- this plan basically plays up both sides of the more interim solutions: start privatizing it while shoring up the funding side for more "traditional" payments.
FRED......PING!!!!
I don’t want socialist security saved. I want it abolished. Saving it is the opposite of what I want.
Good luck with that...
Good luck with saving it... Pyramid scams can’t last forever.
So you'd do nothing and watch it all crumble rather than accept an intermediary step toward improving the situation?
What a shock.
OK...so what candidate that tells retired people to get off their asses and work at age 92 after paying SS taxes for 50 years is going to win?
REALITY, TG. Might want to swig a dose of it.
TG is a Fred-hater of the highest order. He’s the 33rd-level Mason of Fred-haters.
I think this is a good plan in principle, before Congress gets their dirty hands on it.
Ideas, substance, practicality mixed with priciple; where’s the traditional sound bite caqmpaign?
That’s the problem with you guys, you just want to win, and you don’t give a damn about conservative principles. If we betray our principles just to win, then we’ve really lost.
The pdf "With/Without" tables are a nice touch.
But let's redirect discussion back to the plan. No real surprise here, it's a hybrid of what he's already said on the stump -- index increases to prices (constant purchasing power) rather than wages -- and a private savings account system.
On the road to getting rid of Social Security in the long run, the PSAs are the key. In addition to getting away from the "entitlement" mentality, it reinforces that the money is yours, not the government's.
What principles are we betraying? Please, enlighten me.
So, LOSING ELECTIONS accomplishes things?
Tell that to President Perot, President Goldwater, President Buchanan, and President LaRouche.
By the way...don’t tell me I don’t give a damn about conservative principles.
I think he was the one who came up with the secret Fredhaters hand shake...
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