Posted on 09/09/2006 2:18:37 PM PDT by Dubya
WASHINGTON - President Bush hopes to revive his plan to overhaul the U.S. Social Security retirement program if his Republican party keeps control of the Congress in the November midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT
Despite polls suggesting Democrats have their best chance in years to regain control of the House of Representatives, Bush told the newspaper in an interview he was confident a power shift was "not going to happen."
"I just don't believe it," he said, adding that if Republicans prevail at the polls, next year might be a good time to reintroduce the effort to reshape Social Security because he could "drain the politics out of the issue."
Bush was forced to abandoned his 2005 push to add private accounts to the retirement program, in part because of concerns among Republicans that the unpopular plan would jeopardize their chances in this year's elections.
Some Democrats have emphasized the Social Security reform plan in their campaign to oust Republican incumbents in November, contending it would inject too much risk into the program and push the government deeper into debt.
Bush made Social Security investment accounts a top domestic priority for his second term, arguing such a system would help young people by putting the retirement program on a more sustainable financial footing.
I think Rove's internal polls are telling Bush something that the media would like to ignore. A Republican victory in November.
Just roll whatever amount of money workers up to the age of 50 have contributed into SS into a private IRA or 401(k) plan and repeal the payroll tax.
Where's that "Rove, you magnificent bastard!" pic at?
Then I think they should pipe down on this talk... it wasn't popular a year and a half ago, it will only motivate Dem support at this point..
I just hope Bush really presses for this after the election. His first effort for it fell on deaf ears.
"Then I think they should pipe down on this talk"
Rove thinks he's running this election.
What's Rove's payoff after 2008? He failed on Social Security reform, so no multi-million dollar kickback consultancy from the brokerages. Doesn' look like the casinos and hotel chains are going to get their radical immigration bill. I guess there's the drug companies, but their bill didn't need Rove leading Bush by the nose.
Or is Bush still wants to seem "in charge" aand is bringing up this phoney-privatization plan again?
The blogger Kenny Bunk predicted something like this. Rove/Bush throwing the election to the Democrats in order to get the radical immigration bill through.
What the heck, only two years to go, both lame ducks, might as well cash in with the wage depression lobbies and secure sinecures.
What else could explain this incredibly stupid move to bring up Bush's vague Social Security plans?
a bad idea to float this idea before the elections. very bad.
whore-hey is good on the war, but a sissy sub bitch on everything else
there isn't anything wrong with the basic idea, but they did a poor job of framing the issue last time. never once did they explain how it would work, never compared it to 401Ks (which are very popular), etc. and they aren't going to be able to explain it 60 days before an election, so they would best keep quiet now.
Hell, I would tell them to keep it if they would let me opt out.
A government agency, or even a private mutual fund like PIMCO, would be free to offer a fund that offered the low return exactly patterned after the present SS fund. But account holders would also be allowed to invest in qualifying funds that invested in large baskets of securities. At worse, people would get only as much in retirement than is presently promised.
What's amazing about the Social Security issue is that the "do nothing" position remains a commonly adopted political posture despite the publicly available evidence of the costs of delaying action.
Certain conclusions are inescapable, by the numbers alone:
1) The problem isn’t going to go away.
2) Every year of delay makes the situation worse.
3) When action does inevitably have to occur, those who continually downplayed the need for action won't appear very smart or very responsible.
Just a few tidbits, which people are free to look up in the Trustees' reports for themselves:
-- Under current estimates, Social Security’s expenditures will surpass tax revenues by 2017.
-- Even if every conceivable demographic and economic variable breaks in one direction, this date won't slip much. A stochastic analysis shows a 95 % chance that the permanent deficits will begin somewhere between 2013 (the 2.5th percentile) and 2022 (the 97.5th percentile.)
-- This year the Trustees’ estimate of the total Social Security shortfall is $13.4 trillion. The Trustees started publishing estimates of the shortfall in 2003. In just the past three years, this estimate has grown from $10.5 trillion to $13.4 trillion, mostly due to the loss of time.
-- The projected 75-year deficit is already now much bigger than the one that confronted the Greenspan Commission in a "crisis atmosphere" in 1981-83 -- yet some say there's no problem now.
-- In the 1991 Trustees’ report, the date of first deficits was projected as 2017 – exactly the same as predicted today. The lack of net movement in the date since 1991 means that we’ve now frittered away 15 of the 26 years of lead time we had then, though nothing has happened to suggest that the situation will be any better. If the Trustees really were overstating the problem, then it would grow more distant in later reports as actual data gradually replaces the projections. In reality, the opposite has happened: the Intermediate estimates in use since 1983 have been, on balance, somewhat too optimistic.
The bottom line is that delay is a very costly proposition for our children and grandchildren. Those who downplay the problem, and who suggest that reform isn’t necessary, are badly disconnected from the factual evidence, and will likely be badly embarrassed by future events (providing that anyone bothers to check people's past utterances, of course).
You should change your ID to Cajun-jerk
Where did they get this info? Did W come right out and say it?
>...in part because of concerns among Republicans that the unpopular plan would...
Wow, no bias here!
I'd take that, but we'd have to raise tax revenue elsewhere to pay for the benefits for current recipients.
Well, SS reform is generally unpopular, largely because the left keeps lying about it and the right is inexplicably unable to call them on it.
Hey funny guy. Knock it off.
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