Sour Notes on Social Security

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Sour Notes on Social Security
By Isaiah J. Poole

March 4th, 2008 - 11:46am ET


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like an “American Idol” reject, John McCain keeps warbling George W. Bush’s greatest flops.

The latest is Social Security privatization, a proposal so roundly rejected by the American people when Bush tried to foist it on the nation in 2005 that even a solidly Republican and sycophant Congress couldn’t swallow it.

But the Arizona Republican senator can’t let it go. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week, McCain said that he would, if president, seek to implement “private savings accounts … along the lines that President Bush proposed.”

His words to the Journal are mirrored on his website, which says, “John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts — but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept.”

The ominous phrase after the “but” is not-so-thinly-veiled code for benefit cuts. Under McCain, you’ll have to work longer before you retire and get a smaller benefit when you do. Your check will be designed not to keep up with inflation, as Social Security does now, so that as you age, you will continue to fall behind as expenses rise.

Meanwhile, you will have to take some percentage of your money that would have gone into the Social Security trust fund and invest it in the stock market. You will have to navigate a dizzying array of options presented by brokers hungry to claim a slice of your personal account for their wallet. And then you will have to pray that you made a wise choice. If you didn’t, or if you ended up being taken to the cleaners in an Enron-style rip-off, well, tough.

This is the social insecurity that John McCain offers to senior citizens. And this man is not being laughed off the presidential stage? .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/sour-notes-social-security

[antigop]

1. and sHillary wants a bipartisan commission -- gee, what do you think the Republicans on

that committee will want?

[Ganja Ninja]

3. Every time we reach across the aisle we get snake bit.

Why offer bipartisanship to a bunch of people that would never consider offering it to us when positions were reversed? Are we trying to make the GOP look reasonable and respectable?

[antigop]

5. pssst...go check the DLC website....you'll find support for privatization of Soc Sec n/t

[liberal N proud]

2. As long as there is a republicon party they will try to steal SS

It has been one of their missions since the day it was implemented

[B Calm]

4. Cheap labor cons hate a social safety net. They want you over

a barrel and desperate. They are salivating over the prospect of millions of destitute hungry old people willing to work for any job they can get to hire as cheap labor. Which in turn will cause all wages to drop. The larger the labor pool, the cheaper it is!

[PoiBoy]

6. It's way past time for our elected officials...

both Republicon and Democrat to face up to their fisical responsibility and start paying back the billions that have been "borrowed" from the Social Security Trust Fund.

The Republicon/DLC scam to privatize Social Security is just a desperate attempt to write off the billions that we workers have contributed, IMO...

The solution is clear...
* Put the Social Security Trust Fund in a lockbox (thank you President Al Gore!).
* Pay back the billions looted since the Reagan administration. (It's the LAW!)
* Raise the cap on those making more than $90,000.00 per year.

Social Security will be strong and stable for generations to come.