Why doubt its accuracy, when their idiocy is so plain?
FDR had the right idea, and Bush would be well advised to hammer this point home, his plan for soc. sec. is not so much reform as it is a full realization of the original plan.
Wow -- interesting find.
My husband told me just last night that FDR foresaw social security being completely privatized by the turn of the century and that JFK wanted to speed up the process, but was assasinated before he could put his plans into action.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt first suggested
private Social Security Accounts?Excerpt:"In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles--first, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance; it is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the states and the federal government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities, which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the federal government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
Fantastic find! Is there some reason the quote shouldn't be accurate?
What Bush is proposing is to fix the major failing in Social Security, by ensuring that everyone gets to own the money they contribute. This is most important for middle class blacks (who the 'Rats claim to care so much about), the black male has a much lower life expectancy than white men. A average black male can work his entire life, contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars (plus his employer's matching contributions) and retire at 65, but he is only going to live a few more years and his family will only get a few hundred dollars. Bush plans to change all of that, plus insure that the post-baby boomers have the chance to retire in comfort.
When Our Old Age Pension Check Comes To Our Door
by Roy Acuff or Manny Stone
When our old age pension check comes to our door,
We won't have to dread the poor house anymore.
Though we're old and thin and gray,
Good times will be back to stay,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.
When her old age pension check comes to her door,
Dear old grandma won't be lonesome any more.
She'll be waiting at the gate,
Every night she'll have a date,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.
Grow a flowing long white beard and use a cane,
'Cause you're in your second childhood, don't complain.
Life will just begin at sixty,
We'll all feel very frisky,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.
Powder and paint will be abolished on that day,
And hoop skirts will then be brought back into play.
Painted cheeks will be the rage,
And old maids will tell their age,
When their old age pension check comes to their door.
All the drug stores will go bankrupt on that day,
For cosmetics, they will all be put away.
I'll put a flapper on the shelf,
Get a grandma for myself,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.
There's a man that turned this country upside-down
With his old age pension rumor going 'round.
If you want in on the fun,
Send your dime to Washington,
And that old age pension man will be around.
The truth is coming out and these communist RATS will have a rough time with this because we won't let them forget this. I have the minumim forty quarters for Social Security but I've been involved with Ohio Public Employee Retirement system for almost twenty seven years now. It is the sixteenth best retirement system in the world. Even the Enron debacle only felt like a mosquito bite to it. Social Security needs to be privatized because Americans deserve what it will do for all of us.
Bill Clinton's Social Security options
In a recent editorial, The Washington Times reminded its readers that then-President Clinton, in a major policy speech delivered in February 1998 at Georgetown University, warned about "the looming fiscal crisis in Social Security" that "affects every generation." Today, congressional Democrats are downplaying Mr. Clinton's "looming fiscal crisis" in an effort to sabotage any reform effort that might include individual (or personal) retirement accounts.
Mr. Clinton had good reason to be worried about Social Security's long-term future. When he delivered his Georgetown speech, he had been in office for more than five years, during which time he labored over the federal budget and the long-term consequences of fiscal policy. In addition, before the 1998 speech, three national panels had already been commissioned during the Clinton administration to review Social Security reform options: the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform (1993-1995); the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security; and the 1997-1998 National Commission on Retirement Policy.
All three panels offered long-term reform plans that included individual accounts. Moreover, a policy paper presented in June 2001 and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research the following September revealed that the Clinton administration itself intensively analyzed such accounts as part of a long-term solution to "the looming fiscal crisis." Indeed, within days of Mr. Clinton's Georgetown speech, "the administration launched a systematic process to develop a Social Security reform plan," according to the very revealing 2001 paper — "Fiscal Policy and Social Security Policy During the 1990s" — delivered at a Harvard conference. The paper was written by three former senior Clinton administration policy-makers: Douglas Elmendorf (deputy assistant secretary of the treasury), Jeffrey Liebman (special assistant to the president for economic policy) and David Wilcox (assistant secretary of the treasury).
The authors respectfully noted that "[t]he administration's economic team was also aware of a significant group within the Democratic Party that downplayed the need for Social Security reform." Then, they proceeded to demolish the Democratic group's arguments, which today are being repeated by pro-status quo Democrats.
While the administration's high-level working group was reviewing the options, the rapidly growing economy and the soaring stock market were on the verge of turning longtime budget deficits into budget surpluses, which were soon to be projected for years into the future. Admittedly, the imminence of these surpluses stoked the president's interest in exploiting the superior returns offered by stock and bond investments. At the same time, however, "the president also made clear that all reform options other than an increase in the payroll tax should be on the table." To this end, "much of the effort ultimately was directed toward devising ways of bridging the gap between the defenders of the current defined-benefit system and advocates of individual accounts."
Focusing on (1) administrative feasibility and costs, (2) portfolio market risk, (3) political interference in markets and corporate governance and (4) redistribution, the working group rigorously studied the option of investments in private financial assets. It concluded that "such a system could be run at an annual cost of $20 to $30 per account." The economic team also "did not think that market risk was a sufficiently important concern to rule out plans that involved equities." Concerns about redistribution and political interference "under a system of individual accounts" could also be adequately addressed, the working group concluded.
Having resolved its primary concerns, the working group "believed that there was more potential for substantive consensus on Social Security reform than the heated rhetoric on the topic suggested." Optimistically, the authors report that "on two of the most disputed issues — whether investment in private securities should be handled collectively or individually, and whether individual accounts should be created as part of Social Security — there was nearly a continuum of options; and proposals from the left and right seemed to be moving toward each other."
Approvingly noting that even "some of the Republican proposals involved redistributive funding of individual accounts," the authors reported: "Thus, by late 1998" — this timing will be seen to be crucial — "there appeared to be the possibility for convergence around using non-Social Security funds to make redistributive contributions to individual accounts, contributions that might or might not bear any direct mechanical relationship to the traditional Social Security system." There were three "reform plans that occupied the 'policy space' defined by this possible convergence of views." The first would have implemented add-on individual accounts financed either by surplus general revenues, which would compensate for cuts in traditional benefits, or by additional mandatory contributions. The second option, based on a plan developed by former Reagan Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Martin Feldstein and introduced in Congress by Republican Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, would also use surplus revenues to finance individual accounts. The third option was a "hybrid" plan that "included both trust fund investments in equities and the establishment of small individual accounts."
While the budget surplus clearly played a major role in the individual accounts countenanced by the working group, it must also be acknowledged that any of the three "policy space" options would have represented an opening bid by the Clinton administration, subject to negotiation with and revision by the Republican Congress. "In the end," however, "President Clinton decided to pursue Social Security reform based on bolstering the Social Security trust fund rather than on creating individual accounts," the authors recalled. Cryptically, Messrs. Elmendorf, Liebman and Wilcox concluded: "This decision may have been influenced by the changing political dynamic in late 1998, as the possibility that the president would be impeached came clearly into view. Whether the president would have pursued a different approach in the absence of impeachment will never be known." In other words, the grossly irresponsible president's decisions to engage in sexual relations with a White House intern and then to repeatedly lie about it forced him to embrace his liberal Democratic base (and their aversion to individual retirement accounts). In the end, it probably cost Mr. Clinton what the authors call "the Rooseveltian legacy," which would have "come from putting Social Security on secure ground for the coming century."
Corzine (is that him?) is holding Patty Murray up like she's a mental patient, confused about why she's there.
there's a different view of the same in the nyt on p. 14 of yesterday.
amazing.
it catches them smirking--as if they don't believe in what they're doing!
That's a revisionist statue of FDR--no cigarette holder in his mouth. If Congress ever appropriates public money for a monument to Teddy Kennedy, MADD will probably insist he be shown without a drink in hand.
BTTT
