Posted on 11/08/2004 5:39:17 AM PST by beaureguard
Dead People! They finally woke up and realized they were getting screwed and didn't have a voice in it, so they turned out in record numbers for Dubya.
And so is the lack of money for social engineers to play with......Allow the people to invest their own money and the illegals can't get their hands on it through the politicians and the politicians get less to steal for their pork projects.......
That's the another reason these lib idiots don't want privitization of Social Security.
Excellent Point.
Government will have to cut spending (HAH) or raise taxes. If I understand correctly the baby boomers out number my generation 3 to 1. So who is really going to pay for the Social Security if part of the money I earn is being invested in a personal IRA. I have no idea but I would like to see the fine print of this plan. I for one am all for it I THINK !
Good read!
The majority of the elderly voted for the President. He needs to sit down in front of a cozy fire right after his inauguration (the symbolism to that generation of FDR is important), and explain to them why SS has to be fixed, how he intends to at least begin fixing it, and how they will still get their checks. Letting the raving lunatics of the left demagog the issue will kill any reform. He has to get out of the gate quickly on this because this is the last chance to do anything before SS goes bankrupt as boomers retire. And younger people ought to rise up and support the President who will actually let them have their own money to manage, though I'm afraid it will have to be in something like "safe" investments (bonds, for example) to win the votes of nervous nellies in Congress.
When the politicians got their hands on that money they call a Social Security "contribution" they used a part of it to cover the checks there were writing that particular month to Social Security recipients. The rest of it? Gone. Spent. Every single penny of it has been spent. Not invested as a private pension plan would do. They spent it all. Squandered might be a better word.
The "Social Security Trust Fund" is simply government bonds - government debt. Let the government ever need that money, and the taxpayers will find in the Trust Fund only instructions to take the money out of general revenue. That is true no matter what system of investment and accounting you use, if the investment is limited to "safe" government bonds.There is only one way to have a "lockbox" to save youngsters' payroll tax for the future: private accounts. And there is only one way for the payout of the private accounts to not tap the federal treasury: investment of that money in real assets. And there is only one way for that investment to not cause government control of the corporations invested in: individual private control of the investment decisions.
The US Government already has a private retirement system for it's employees set up along the lines President Bush is recommending. It is called the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).
Employees get to contribute up to 5% of their income with government matching and they get to choose from a number of different accounts to place the monies, and in what percentages. They can also change where their money is held and in what % anytime they wish. There are a variety of stock indexes, bond indexes, treasury instruments to choose from. The owner (employee) has full rights to all the monies, as does his heirs. If he leaves the government early, he takes it with him. The various funds take a small percentage to professionally manage the assets, which are his. It is basically a government sponsored IRA and works very well.
As a personal example, after 12 years contributing to that system and managing my own assets, I am better off than a lifetime of Social Security "contributions", and have "contributed" less money. My lifetime annuity would be larger than Social Security, starts earlier and is not subject to confiscation by politicians.
There is no reason all Americans couldn't have the same sort of plan, with the same sort of government oversight. It is far superior to Social Insecurity and is ready to roll almost immediately!
If Social Security privatization should happen, the generation that opts out of it and into a regulated investment account will never relinguish control of their privatized accounts.
The privatized account holders will see the their contributions as private property and not a slush fund for transfer payments to special interest groups.
There is nothing in the social security trust fund except a ledger of IOUs. The borrowers of the Trust Fund have accounted for their sepnding it by adding it to the National Debt. It is a disgrace what has been done to it.
I've read all the posts about how democrats want to keep SS as it as for political reasons. But there is more to this than than.
First, democrats see SS as the crown jewel of the Roosevelt administration.
Second, and more importantly, it is ideological. There is a strain of thought in the democrat party that inequality is evil. If privitization is allowed, some will have more income in retirement than others. It's like HillaryCare.
I posed this question to a democrat during the debate on HillaryCare. I gave him two alernatives. In the first system there are levels of healthcare available to different people. In the second, there is only one level of care available and it is less than any level of care in the first system. My democrat chose the later since all would be the same.
SS is like that to most democrats. Suppose there were two systems and under the first everyone gets at least $1000 but could get much more. In the second system everyone gets $750. A good democrat would choose the second system since it is 'fair'.
I know there is a lack of logic to their positions but that's how it is.
Fixing SS would take away one of the left's perennial bogey men that they drag out every election to scare seniors, of which I am one. I have spent the last few years trying to educate fellow seniors in this community (mostly widows) that the Republicans would never take away their SS, as they, too, have mothers and grandmothers. Managed to reach a few. We have to reeducate people one by one--takes great work and patience, but it is the only way. The SS scare by Dems helped put WJC back in. I had oldies tell me they didn't like him, but they were afraid of losing their SS if they voted Repub. AArrrggghhh!(Primordial scream)
vaudine
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you will always get the vote of Paul...
They aren't (seriously, do you think democraps care about anyone but themselves?)... all these comments are straight from the TPM. it's apart of their scare tactics.
WHY ARE LEFTISTS SO DEATHLY AFRAID OF SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION?
For the same reason they so fervently want to "nationalize/socialize" our health care industry... To derive more power and control over peoples' lives.
What they mean is that partially privatizing Social Security would constitute the use of honest accounting - and honest accounting would recognize the unfunded liability presently accruing ing the SSTF. The expense is the same either way - but with privatization, the expense is accounted for much more realistically.
Yes, they WANT control of our lives.
SOCIALISM....
The mindset of the dems is that Americans cannot think or act for themselves. They must be taken care of by the state.
MARXISM
Neal is spot on.
BINGO!
We have our winner!
Victims of the Kerry scare campaign would have you believe that this would be taking money out of the So-so Security program,
Not so, it would just mean the moneys would be reidirected at the earners discretion. It would still be there only not in the "pot" that DemLibs can get their fingers in.
That the people that earn the money should be able to spend it is a thought completely foreign to DemLibs
After all, who knows better how to spend our hard-earned dollars than a Kennedy, a Clinton or a Kerry?
Who needs to ask?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.