Rove Says Social Security Overhaul Must Have Private Accounts

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aK9Hi3J.L61A&refer=us

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Private accounts must be part of any permanent Social Security fix, said Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff, expressing optimism Congress will end a partisan standoff and pass such a measure this year.

``The personal retirement account has to be part of the long- term solution,'' Rove, Bush's chief political and policy adviser, said in an interview in Washington yesterday. ``The public and Congress are becoming aware that it's a serious problem.''

Bush wants Congress to pass legislation allowing workers younger than 55 to invest in stocks and bonds as much as a third of the 12.4 percent tax they and their employers pay into the Social Security program. Bush and Republican congressional leaders acknowledge that it's politically impossible to pass sweeping legislation without some bipartisan support.

<snip>

``Accounts are being overly sold and tremendously demagogued,'' Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on March 8. ``If they want solvency without accounts, I'm willing to sit down and talk.'' Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine said Feb. 15 Social Security needs lawmakers' ``full attention'' and need not be changed this year.

...more...

The Dems had better stand firm on this and not waiver. :banghead:

Shove it, Rove, you dough head!!!

When do we escape this evil regime!!! If there is a God, surely there would be some divine intervention soon ...

brain!!

Or for that matter Bush.

wasn't he back in d.c. feverishly manning the computers to "adjust" the results in ohio? there's a story out there about this.

here's the article for the newbies.
By the time election night came around, Mr Rove was in the White House, where, unusually for a political adviser, he has an office.

He set up computers in the Old Family Dining Room and started tabulating results. He had set up a massive network of contacts, not just in state capitals, but individual districts and precincts to monitor turnout and support.


Early exit polls quoted by media seemed to give Mr Kerry the edge, but colleagues said Mr Rove indicated right away that they did not tally with his information.

He used his own data to put Ohio and Florida in the Bush column - bringing cheers from the president and his family when he went into the Roosevelt Room and told them.
more at link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3987237.stm

its easy to know who the winner is before the race starts when you have "fixed" everything.

i knew it was out there somewhere! i hope this is archived.

because Repub politicians are getting an earful from their constiuents and are running away from Bush's "plan."

If abandoned, the faithful will become angrier with leebrals.

go into the market to falsely pump it up. He wants the recession to happen when he is perhaps out of office and when the elites have been able to trade out of (divest) the traditional American stocks.

After all, what is the purpose of the Middle Class if not to take the brunt of every recession. Why should the rich have to pay after one bubble after the other where some of their stocks grew.

Those profits on the books!! They have to get it out of the market and only a huge infusion of Cash will do that. (If the elites sell too many stocks at one - the price of the stock goes down).

Don't silly little Middle Class people understand?

The price of stocks has been artifically pumped up for years since the introduction of 401k plans. But that's not enough to keep the illusion of the magic money machine alive to hook the suckers. SS privitaization is just the new influx of money that is needed.

that changes my position completely! :eyes:

WTF does HE know about it - except how to dupe the public into buying more bu$hit bu$hit. Guess that's enough, eh?

Bald-headed little weaselly dirtbag...

We now see for sure who's running the show and it's definitely not *

KR: "DAMN the polls! It's all about ME now you fuckers and there's NOTHING you're going to do to stop me"

Now that we know who the head vampire is, we need somebody with the wooden stake.

don't weaken it."

king? STFU! white bread dough boy.

Have I told everyone how much I despise these criminals?

held aloft the Supreme Court ruling of Bush vs. Gore from the bosom of the water, signifying by Divine Providence that I, KKKarl, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I'm your king!"

We have some lovely shark-infested water off our coast. I'm sure you will be right at home. Please don't make the sharks sick.

Are they now bypassing the puppet altogether and letting "Bush's brain" speak for himself???

Mr Genius probably thinks that nobody has been good enough at selling the plan, so he will have to do it himself. Oh, no hell is horrible enough for this son of the devil. I say send him to bagdad without body armor or helmet.

Just to be sure everyone there is aware of his presence, LOL.

Especially when they roll out their #1 main attack bulldog bully. His teeth are showing.

Funny how he became so much more visible after the inauguration, since W won't be campaigning for president again. W campaigned for office for 4 years, now he's campaigning for all these horrible policies - all at taxpayer expense, of course.

just learned of this the other day. Wow.
Do you know what year that was taken?
Thanks.

Rove, the Lunatic's damaged brain.

Who does he think he is -- GOD???

All you have to do is set aside funds from your take home pay and buy stocks. It always works well, just ask the folks with Worldcom or Enron stock! I just wish these idiots would restore SocSec to long term solvency and be done with this private account nonsense!

Rove says that the SS in private accounts is for the poor people who will never be able to save for 401Ks. So they can get into the market. Funny? Didn't Bush try to sell the plan to African American men by saying they should not worry if they loose money..they would not live long enough to see it anyway?

How exactly do those two mesh?

Or are we not supposed to be able to remember all the 'realities' stacking up.:shrug:

Original Article right on this page
: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=102&topic_id=1368702&mesg_id=1368737

last 50 years.

Something else is going on here. This whole issue isn't about social security or private accounts. It's more about control and manipulation...just more shadows and mirrors.

set out to do is dead wrong!! the fight has barely begun in his book!!

watch. It will be interesting to see which dems will turn on us.

on this issue. They don't need public support or we wouldn't be at war.

I think it's about control and power. Perhaps his ego has gotten too big to know when to give up. I think he's going to lose this one. To say that it "must" include private accounts pretty much throws out anything the dems would come up with, and probably a lot of what the repugs would too.

I really, really believe he went too far with that, and we will be seeing trouble in paradise in the repug party. He's got power, but it's not a dictatorship YET.

Don't like it. Not one bit.

Bet you are right, Ms Marple.

the "conversion costs" involved - something like $2 TRILLION. Since when has the * admin. cared about the future 15-20 years from now! Everything they do is geared for immediate gain. The conversion costs are probably funds they owe to big backer in finance.

Goody.

money to push off the recession for another 4 years (just in time for a Democratic President). If there is no private accounts then the recession will happen now and will be only twice as bad as it would have been had it been allowed to happen in 2002/2003.

Don't we understand? If we put 1/3 of the savings into the market.. then the bubble will keep the economy afloat for a bit longer. And then it will tank. Along with 1/3 of retirement.

And then the recession will be 4 times worse than it would have been had Bush allowed economics to happen and a correction take place after the Bubble of the 1990s.

Don't you understand? The rich need time to divest of American stocks! How else are they going to get rid of all that GE and get into Haliburton if there is not all the SS money to trade with.

Now do we understand!

nothing whatsoever for the middle class or poor.

Big Oil policy has done to the USA economy in the 50 years. Bush doesn't want to take the heat for what people like Rumsfield, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Nixon did. (British too, Truman & et al).

He wants the Democrats to take the fall.

Meanwhile he does nothing to stop or slow down the use of Oil. They claim taxes have to be low or the rich will vamoose and that will leave America wholly owned by Saudis. So apparently it is some sort of crisis. But Bush doesn't life a finger to teach us to let go of the oil so the cycle will be less.

Yes this recession to come will be much bigger than if it had been a 2002 correction.

the question, "Does the pResident think privatizing SS will help delay the coming recession?"

That's what the MSM would be doing if the deficit were on the other foot.

:banghead:

Read the economists. I think there was even a document posted here in the last few weeks that went into the Bubble 1/3 of all SS would create for the market. But thanks for sort of implying I was sort of an intellectual or original. Made me feel all warm inside for a second.

The big War in Iraq pushed off the first recession. That is why neocons talk about perpetual war and perpetual markets. When they have labor at stagnant or lower wages (as the competition is global) the economy can withstand the spending of a war without going into hyperinflation.. indeed like any government spending..it heats up the economy.

The policy has been to not put off recession so that things don't get worse...corrections are made... but these neocons have other plans.

It was touch and go on the need for the Iraq War. They sure as hell will not take on Iran and 70 Million people. So what will be next... Cuba? Canada (the annexation of Canada alone would put off recession for a decade). Not looking too pretty.

I pray the neocons learnt something about how little they can control war this time around. I hope they lost a good deal of confidence.

Who the hell is he??? oH ya he stole the election for Bush thats right and did a pretty horrible job at it!!!

of that bloated pussbag :(

hell bush was never elected!!

It's probably the first time in either of their miserable lives that they've shared anything! These two are nothing if not incredibly selfish.

I'm sorry. I thought you knew ( I thought everybody here knew)that the Chimp is just the figurehead. I figured that one out on 9/11 when Cheney was immediately in a safe bunker, issuing orders and the Chimp was left out to continue reading My Pet Goat. It was a very telling moment.

and it sure ain't Social Security

Rove, the architect of Bush's 3.5-million-vote re-election victory over Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry in November, said changing Social Security, the retirement program born out of the Great Depression, is ``vital to the country, and nothing ever comes easy.''


3.5 million vote re-election??? excuse me?

The rethuglican plan to bankrupt social security requires private accounts to siphon off SS funds and to pile on to the federal debt to such an extent that maintaining social security pensions will be impossible.

Rove: our plans to wreck social security require privatization.

First, staged events. Then pleas for bipartisanship. Then threats. Now, ROVE has spoken. EOM

"Private accounts must be part of any permanent Social Security fix"

What have they promised Wall Street, and why?

bush told his mommy on everybody too. He pushed her into the fray, thinking the kindly old maternal ploy would work with senior citizens.
HA! That withered old crone could scare the chrome of a bumper hitch. Shoving her in front of everyone did more harm than good for them. That dried up, heartless bitch never did a day of work in her life, and SHE'S supposed to relate to the senior citizens? :rofl: Not in a thousand years, which, I believe is her current age.

they had to do anything.

eat donuts for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner if you want to stay healthy.

BEFORE some other event takes place?

Or is dubya too stupid to deliver the message coherently? Must be something going on for the puppet master to speak up.

I think you're right-- the puppetmasters are getting noticeeably impatient with the chimp manning the phones in the Privatization Boiler Room

Further down, " In yesterday's interview, Rove also said Bush won't name a successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan anytime soon, and ruled out any government intervention to curb rising oil prices."

Rising oil not a problem now! How conveeeeeeeeenient!

I hope the religious types are right, and that there is a real and flaming hell....

why would he do that gas is only 2.50 a gallon hell he'sworking for the oil companies maybe when is's 5.00 a gallon they will be happy

Why? Oh yeah, because you're beholden to wall street in the 2004-2008 term.

Fuck this guy. We really need to let this administration know that they're not getting their greedy paws on our damn SS money.

92%or93%?

Democrats: MIA
Editorial
from the April 11, 2005 issue of The Nation
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0325-28.htm
After giving George W. Bush far too easy a ride in his first term, the Democratic leadership in Congress promised that the second term was going to be different. "This is not a dictatorship," announced Senate minority leader Harry Reid. The new head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, declared, "The President neither has the mandate he thinks he has nor a majority to make policy." But three months of watching the Democrats' stumbling, often incoherent responses to Administration appointments and initiatives shows clearly that the party is making the same mistakes that cost it so dearly in the 2002 and 2004 elections.

It's easy simply to blame the GOP majorities in the Senate and House when bad legislation passes those chambers. But too frequently it has been Democratic disorder rather than Republican treachery that has made possible the Bush White House's legislative victories. That's what happened with the mid-March Senate vote on a budget amendment that would have protected the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Seven Republican senators voted to protect ANWR from oil drilling. Had the Democratic caucus simply held firm in support of the amendment, it would have won by a 52-to-48 margin. But three Democrats--Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana--broke ranks to back the Administration. All three had their excuses, and if this had been the only bill on which Democrats failed to hold together, it might not be a cause for serious concern. But this is hardly an isolated example of Democrats doing the bidding of the President and the special interests that support him.

Consider the February Senate vote on tort "reform," another issue on which Democrats are supposed to be the defenders of the common good against the rapacious Republicans. The battle lines could not have been clearer: Bush and his allies wanted to limit sharply the ability of citizens to file class-action lawsuits against corporations that injure or defraud them. A united Democratic opposition in the Senate could have mounted a populist challenge that might well have won GOP allies for a fight to preserve the sovereignty of state courts, which will be lost under the legislation. Instead, Democrats helped give Bush the first major legislative victory of his second term. Only twenty-six Senate Democrats opposed the proposal, while eighteen--including serial compromisers Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh and some who ought to know better, like Charles Schumer and Jay Rockefeller--sided with the GOP. It was just as bad in the House, where fifty Democrats--including Rahm ("no mandate") Emanuel--backed the bill, handing Bush an easy win that provides momentum for an agenda that includes proposals to restrict asbestos litigation and curb medical malpractice suits.

Even more disappointing was the mid-March vote on legislation designed to make it harder for middle-class and poor Americans to declare personal bankruptcy, leaving crooked companies like Enron free to declare bankruptcy themselves and thus be protected from claims like those by employees who lost their pensions. The vote on the measure, which had been blocked for years by such progressive Democrats as the late Paul Wellstone and a timely veto from then-President Bill Clinton, passed by an overwhelming 74-to-25 vote. Eighteen Democrats--including Reid and key players like Joseph Biden of Delaware and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico--aligned themselves with the President and the credit card companies that wrote and promoted the bill...

on SS. US Rep Allen Boyd (D) Fla is holding town hall meetings in area around North Florida(holding one tonight in Wakulla county) pushing for private accounts. The Dems will fall off into irrelevancy when they cave o SS.

What'd he do? Stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?


:eyes:

...has gotten a bit impatient with the performance of his 'marionette' geedubya and decided to take matters into his own hands - and mouth. It can be so frustrating when the writer, or producer, or director, or Rasputin, or puppeteer decides that the performance isn't up to his/her standards and figures that they can do it better. Well you just keep it up karl-baby, the more impatient you guys get and the more you overreach, the more that even the lesser dullards among your supporters will start to understand that they've been had.

I was at a Senate listening session yesterday for Feingold, there was an investment counselor that is a republican and he said he wanted to share why exactly private accounts the way bush has described them are a bad idea.

He said Social Security dollars are not yours to invest. The program works on the basis of active workers paying for those retired and disabled. The money paid into the system is not your money.

He said that private accounts in ADDITION to the social security fund are a fine idea, but the other is not. period.

Overwhelming the opinion at that meeting and also another I attended with my Congressional Rep was to raise the cap. In fact at the other meeting a woman stood up and said she would be willing to pay to whatever cap was needed to ensure that social security continues intact. That is the kind of people MOST americans are, decent and willing to pitch to help those in need.

The Citizens at that meeting renewed my hope in the people of america. Feingold renewed my hope for the Senate, he is a good Senator with his head on straight. Answered every single question asked and did so respectfully, even with people with opposing viewpoints. He also stated where he stood as to how he would or would not vote for something and then expounded as to why. That's all we ask, straight answers and the reasons for the decisions.

That is something my Congressional Rep. Petri would not do. He would not answer these questions as well as several others:
"Do you support private accounts?"
"Why are we still in Iraq?"
"will you support S. 515?"

The last question about S. 515 is in regards to VA funding to levels that ensure the Vets get the treatment they need. The guy who asked this question said "I am asking you, no, I am begging you to please support this bill", after he had told about a very close friend that had committed suicide due to PTSD because he didn't get treatment, it wasn't readily available. He has another friend who just came back from Iraq and sees that situation could go the same way unless the PTSD is treated. It was mind blowing to me that Petri would not commit to that young man right then and there to doing everything in his power to get S. 515 passed. What is really sad is that Petri was just re-elected and we had a great guy running as challenger, who would really be fighting for all of us.

The way I see it there sworn oath of office is no different than the one the people take to enter the military. The military put their lives on the line every day to protect and defend the constitution, the congress should do the same or be lablel AWOL and dismissed!

"The personal retirement account has to be part of the long- term solution,"

TRANSLATION: "Private accounts are the centerpiece of the Rabid Right's attempt to sabotage and eventually eliminate Social Security".

I agree with the posters above who feel that the wheels are coming off this wagon. Good. I want them to suffer some sort of humiliating defeat tout de suite.

the GOP soon

Has anyone told them to shove it yet?

"It's the only way to prop up our imploding economy."

Um, right. What happens once all those stocks and bonds lose most of their value once the effects of our ballooning deficits and foreign-account balance intersect with the problems peak oil is certain to cause?

We know you have strong backing in the Beelzebub Party, but I wouldn't be so confident about where this all is heading.

Perhaps this really will burn Rove's toast, so to speak.

that being said, what a frigging asshole.

Grrr.

:mad:

bite me. Any plan that Democrats put forward WOULD NOT contain personal accounts. So stop your bitching and whining about the Dems not cooperating and figure out a way to fix SS WITHOUT piratization. Of course the Slugs want personal accounts. They want all of that money in the market to steal, another redistribution of wealth con game.
Rove can go suck a donkey dick, this ISN'T going to happen. A vast majority of people in this country DO NOT WANT piratization, yet these ass clowns insist on ramming it down our throats. Ain't 'gonna happen, fat boy. You lose, and you're going to CONTINUE losing throughout this entire term. :grr:

If they can hold the line on this battle, they will have performed the equivalent of those few airmen in the 1940 Battle of Britain who held off the Nazis.

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" (London, England, June 18, 1940)

CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS...THIS IS YOUR FINEST HOUR. DON'T BLOW IT.

He does not like losing, and he will not hesitate to destroy people's lives and careers in order to get his way.

"The Dems had better stand firm on this and not waiver." You are absolutely right UpInArmsbecause divided they will not be able to stand up to the Rove steamroller.

government. They WANT what they paid for.

Rove was not elected to any position in the government and for him to say something must be included into the Social Security overhaul scam should raise every red flag from here to Timbuktu. Rove is looking to line the pockets of Wall St supporters of G Dub ya. Rove would do anything to help out G Dubya's supporters including climbing into one and holding the commander in thief's balls himself. Sorry for the profanity but Rove is a crook and has demonstrated he will stop at nothing to reward those who have backed his lord and master.

You fat fuck

wrong head.

"a good possibility is they want to try to entice all these young people into supporting Social Security so that the 2 trillion dollars it's going to cost to set up private accounts will be injected into the stock market,pump up the value of stocks,and the young people'd be locked into these private accounts,the value of the stocks will go up,they'll dump the stocks,and some people will walk away with hundreds of billions of dollars and leave a new generation of Americans on the threshold of poverty"

I wonder what they're up to? http://clinton.senate.gov/index.html
Harry Reed is "concerned",though,http://reid.senate.gov/socialsecurity/index.cfm
Against Privatization
I am concerned that replacing Social Security’s defined benefit with a system of private accounts would result in the loss of guaranteed level of benefits for the more than 46 million Social Security recipients. Privatization is not the simple solution to Social Security reform that some of its advocates imply. Several different Social Security reform proposals have been introduced in Congress, many of which are based on plans to privatize or partially privatize Social Security. In 2001, President Bush formed a sixteen-member commission to study and report recommendations to modernize and restore fiscal soundness to Social Security. When the Commission released its final report on December 21, 2001 presenting three models for modifying the current Social Security program, all of the Commission's proposals included systems based on voluntary personal accounts.

Privatization has many disadvantages. First, comparisons on rates of return to the existing Social Security system can be highly misleading. The claims of higher returns ignore the huge transition costs of financing benefits for current and near retirees and are not adjusted to reflect the higher risks of the stock market. Moreover, investments by the Social Security trust fund, rather than those of individual accounts, are stable and provide the retirement security Nevadans need.

Second, making the transition to a partially privatized system could lead to insolvency and would divert funds from the existing Social Security system. Diverting current payroll taxes into personal accounts would mean the loss of revenues that pay the benefits of today’s retirees. In order to make privatization work, benefits would need to be cut, the retirement age would need to be raised, or taxes would need to be increased.

Finally, privatizing Social Security would seriously jeopardize the long-term fiscal health of the program. Social Security was designed to be an insurance plan, not an investment program. Instead of guaranteed benefits based on an individual's work history, benefits under a privatized system would depend on an individual's investment skills - and on sheer luck. Reductions in core benefits would also inhibit Social Security's ability to combat poverty among the elderly and disabled.

Nancy Pelosi big against
http://www.house.gov/pelosi/welcome.htm

http://www.house.gov/pelosi/calculator/
Pelosi Statement on Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports
Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the reports of the Social Security and Medicare Trustees:

"Today's Trustees reports reinforce one basic reality - in its current form, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until 2041 and even after that will be able to pay 74 percent of benefits. This finding flatly contradicts Republican efforts to manufacture a 'crisis' in Social Security to justify a partial privatization plan that is unaffordable, unnecessary, and unwise. The Majority's proposal would require trillions of dollars of additional debt and would slash benefits by more than 40 percent.

"Democrats recognize that Social Security does face a challenge down the road, and we are committed to ensuring that American families receive the secure retirement they have earned. This can only occur with a bipartisan effort to strengthen, not weaken Social Security, and Democrats stand ready to work with the Majority once they stop insisting on private accounts.

"The Medicare Trustees reaffirmed what they stated last year. Last year, the Trustees reported that Medicare's solvency had decreased from 2026 to 2019, which is a direct result of the enormous subsidies to HMOs and other privatization provisions in the 2003 Medicare bill. The news this year is basically the same, with insolvency projected at 2020.

"Today's report sends a clear signal that Republicans should drop their efforts to drain trillions of dollars to pay for risky private accounts and should stop their mismanagement of Medicare."

last month, I believe, mocking Bush's Social Security town halls. The only Senate Dem who might defect is Ben Nelson. Everyone else says no to private accounts.

Oh, so the Un-elected Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove is now making it seem as if the Social Security 'fix' is a partisan problem?

Seems to me that Rove needs to be 'a bit more in touch' with the citizens of this country.

The future of this country depends on it!