Reply #27: I read a couple of articles last night about Beezle-bushs SS proposal [View All]

it expenses the cost over something like 75 years. The reasoning being the average life expectancy.

Meanwhile, the try to assure us this isn't a present to the WS cronies.

There still is not a lot of detail regarding any of these changes, and that's the big problem. It's like Shrub is saying "trust me". This scares the crap out of me - HE can't be trusted, and the Dems appear spineless. Then there's that whole issue of bills being passed without being read these days. :eyes:

Report Denies Privatization Windfall
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53665-2004Dec9.html


Commission clarifies plans to reform Social Security
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~11851~2587290,00.html

snip>

Sixteen of us — Republicans and Democrats — served on the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security. There seems to be a great deal of confusion and misinformation about our recommendations that should be made clear. Although we presented the president with three plans, Plan 2 received the majority of the Commissioners’ support and should serve as the starting point.

What did Plan 2 recommend?First, consistent with one of the president's principles, everyone who is age 55 or older should receive their promised Social Security benefits, inflation adjusted. No exceptions. This means that all AARP members can be assured that their benefits will not be changed as a result of any of the other recommended reform.

Second, we recommended that Social Security's safety net be strengthened by increasing the benefits paid to low-wage workers. It is disgraceful that under the current system, a low-wage worker receives a benefit that keeps him or her below the poverty line. The Social Security actuaries told us that, if implemented immediately, this would raise at least 700,000 of today's elderly out of poverty. In addition, we recommended that widows' benefits be raised.

Third, because Social Security's benefit formula increases the benefits of future retirees beyond the amount received by today's retirees, even after inflation, we recommended that the growth in benefits be cut. The result is that every future retiree would get a benefit slightly larger than the benefit received by today's retirees, but less than they are promised by a system that can't pay those increased benefits. Critics have ferociously attacked this recommendation, misleading people into believing that future retirees would get a benefit less than today's retirees receive. This is completely false.

Last, we recommended that younger workers be given the choice to invest 4 percent of their income or up to $1,000 per year to allow lower-wage workers to invest more in a government regulated Personal Retirement Account. Their money would be invested in funds similar to that in which all federal workers are allowed to invest just five large mutual funds. The accounts would be individually owned, controlled, and inheritable. The worker would still receive a Social Security benefit, but proportionately less than he or she would have had all of their taxes continued to flow into Social Security. The Social Security actuaries said that for those workers who chose a PRA, they could expect to receive a benefit that is higher than the existing system can pay.

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