AARP 'dead set against' Bush's Social Security plan

USA TODAY via Yahoo! ^ | January 25, 2005 | William M. Welch

[Brilliant]

[Gannett allows headline and link only]

[biblewonk]

Not becasue they care about the plan or whether it may benefit their own constituents, but only because they are against republicans/conservatives.

[Taxman]

If any of you are members of AARP, now is the time to resign!

Vote with your dollars and don't support this radical leftist group!

[anonymous_user]

Could we form a Freeper group to counter-balance them.

Yeah, the Conservative AARP or "CAARP."

[anniegetyourgun]

Where can I find the Bush plan in writing? I'd like to review the substance, since apparently the AARP already has....

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"If it is any consellation just remember you may be inheriting some of that $$$$ from your 6 parents."

LOL! Funny you should mention that; I am Exector for two of them; the ones with the most cash-o-la! In fact, my Dad just blew close to $5K taking 4 of us to Puerto Vallarta, MX for a week. He wrote one check to cover it all. Yeah, he's hurtin'. Not.

Living well is the best revenge, right? ;)

[Old Phone Man]

I'm a geezer and someday you will be one too. I don't pay any attention to AARRP..The old lady and I live on a fixed income within our means here in Pa. Thank God our house is paid for. The school and property taxes are sky high and in order to pay them the old lady has a part time job keeping the books for a small business..
I have cancer and I thank God, too, that he gave me the energy to report to the same job for thirty years ..My pension and medical help out a lot!
I served my country, paid taxes, and never broke the law..
Most of us geezers did the same thing..We did our best!

[PGalt]

AARP/Socialist Security = Economic Cannibals.

[Brilliant]

I'm 47. Unfortunately for you and me, the die is already cast. The President's plan won't let us invest our contributions. It only applies to younger workers.

The only dog we have in this fight is that if nothing is done, then the trust fund will become insolvent and our benefits and our kids' benefits will be cut.

The claim is that the President's plan would drain the trust fund by diverting contributions. That may be true in the short run, although in the longer run, it will reduce the drain on the fund by eliminating payments out of the fund since younger workers will be drawing their benefits from the private accounts.

And you don't solve the problem by leaving things as they are, you only enable further delay. The longer we delay, the bigger and more unmanageable the problem is. Diverting some of the contributions out of the trust fund and into private accounts would force the government to deal with the problem sooner. That might mean a tax increase or a benefit cut to keep the trust fund solvent thru the retirement of the older workers like us, but if that's what we're going to have to do anyway, then the sooner we do it, the better. The worst thing we can do is wait until it's a crisis, and then have no alternative but a huge tax increase or a huge benefit cut.

[Brilliant]

I don't think they have. It's not been released yet.

[newgeezer]

Not becasue they care about the plan or whether it may benefit their own constituents, but only because they are against republicans/conservatives.

I suspect the AARP leadership will fight tooth and nail against fixing what member$ perceive is not broken. Doing so is a lot easier and less risky than attempting to persuade those member$ that it's a good plan.

Whether or not they succeed in stopping the plan, if they can convince their member$ that they're looking out for the member$' best interests, everyone will be happy.

"Let the kids worry about their own retirement (while they pay for mine); keep your politician paws OFF."

[uncbob]

Well I would venture without any fear of being wrong that todays generation are inheriting a hell of a lot more money from the dying geezers than those geezers did from their parents .
In fact if anything those geezers had their parents living with them as grandfather grandmothers .

And in addition I am willing to bet those geezers sacrificed a lot more to send the boomer generation to college etc etc

I remember growing up I had to pay board when I lived at home

In conversations with coworkers I found that a hell of a lot of those boomers lived board free once they got out of school etc and went to work

[Qwinn]

I did some temp work at the AARP's K Street headquarters in Washington D.C. back around 1989. Even back then, 15 years ago, I didn't see one single person there over the age of 40. I've worked in a whole lot of places, and I don't think I ever worked anywhere where the average age was -younger- than it was at AARP. Rumor had it that there was indeed a little old lady doing needlepoint up on the top floor whose face got plastered all over every piece of mail going out the door.

Qwinn

[uncbob]

I throw all of AARPs garbage right in the trash never was a member

They are equivalent to the Modern NAACP

Looking for a cause so they can keep power

[reagan_fanatic]

Don't say DEAD and AARP in the same sentence. I think their lawyers sue for that. (snerk-snerk))

And their turn-over rate is worse than McDonalds.

[Longwalled Newbie]

I agree! And, before I shut down this contraption, I'd like to add that "A coalition of major conservation Christian groups...threatening to withhold support for President Bush's plans to remake Social Security...." has grown increasingly impatient! I mean, really: See today's New York Times news report titled Backers of Gay Marriage Ban Use Social Security as Cudgel at the following URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/politics/25marriage.html?th (tsk!)

[RGSpincich]

If they be agin it, I'll be fer it.

[Dysfunctional]

The truth is closer to:

"Just give me (all your payroll taxes), say the(thieving politicians). "Who cares about (the old or the young who will eventually grow old).

It is so easy for the politicians to pit black against white and rich against poor. Why not the young against the old? They have been stealing the payroll taxes and spending it on pork, to buy votes. So now it is the greedy old geezers.

I say not one more farm subsidy... not one more dollar in foreign aid or dues to the UN. Not one more public works project or grant... nothing - 'nada'.

Then after 10 years, lets see how many benefits need to be cut.

[Noachian]

...the government would face "transition" costs of $1 trillion to $2 trillion that could be added to the national debt.

Is this, or is this not, a polite way to say that taxpayers will have to pay more in taxes?

[Wristpin]

"I suspect the AARP leadership will fight tooth and nail against fixing what member$ perceive is not broken."

It's not a broken system if you only paid a FICA tax rate of one percent and get to draw benefits at todays levels.

Now later generations will be getting screwed since they pay a FICA tax that has been raised thirteen times and is 500% higher. What we have here is "Age Warfare".

The true culprit in all this is the politicians that spent the money from the "Trust fund". It's no different than a CEO stealing from his employees pension fund.

[Congressman Billybob]

This is why I believe a frontal assault by FR, DC Chapter, is an appropriate Freep at AARP's marble palace. If you read the backgrounds of the 21 members of the AARP Board, you see that exactly one of them draws a paycheck from private sector funds.

All the rest are on some form of public sector funding, which offers a clue as to why the organization is both liberal, and dishonest -- which do NOY represent the 35 million people (including me) who are its members.

Congressman Billybob

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