Republicans Consider Slowing Benefits Growth for Most -NYT

[Rose Siding]

Can "progressive indexation" help sell President Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security?

Though he has been loath to propose specific measures to reduce future benefits, Mr. Bush and other officials are gingerly promoting the idea as a way to cut costs and still protect low-income retirees.

Supporters of "progressive indexation" say it could achieve several goals: it would eliminate a big part of Social Security's long-running financial gap; it would guarantee benefits at current levels and allow them to rise in real terms for people at the bottom of the income ladder.
...
In terms of purchasing power, benefits would not decline. But because wages tend to rise faster than prices do, analysts estimate that benefits would fall far behind increases in the standard of living.

Benefits promised to people who retire in 50 years would be about half as large as benefits promised under current law. Instead of replacing about 40 percent of pre-retirement income for a median-income worker, as is the case today, Social Security benefits would replace only 21.5 percent of earnings for a person who retired in 2065, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/politics/25social.html?ex=1269406800&en=af51441cff29d10f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

[scarletlib]

1. bull shit

anything these bastards come up with to "help the people at the bottom of the income ladder" is just another plan to screw them.

[Rockerdem]

3. Huh?? Theyve been wanting to do that for a long time.

One strategem for the GOP has been to turn SS into another welfare program for the poor. They feel that most Americans would drop their heavy support for it, thereby driving a wedge into it, killing it eventually. They already have a wedge between the younger and the older. Beware.

[LincolnMcGrath]

2. WTF "But because wages tend to rise faster than prices do"

On what planet does that happen?

[rocktivity]

4. Disinformation

Get rid of the $90,000 salary cap, roll back the tax cuts--crisis over!

:headbang:
rocknation

[gizmo1979]

5. Is that like the whatchamacolit is attached to the whosit?

And if under a blue moon on the 29th of february a blue billed herring eats a worm your benefits will go up.So as Bush says "It's all good."

[w4rma]

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