Dems Want to Focus on Other Savings Plans

Dems Want to Focus on Other Savings Plans
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Democrats, emboldened by their united opposition to President Bush's Social Security privatization proposal, are preparing to pivot soon to supporting proposals aimed on boosting personal savings outside the federal retirement program.


Among the ideas being considered, according to congressional aides speaking on the condition of anonymity, are improvements to existing retirement savings programs, such as trying to increase participation in corporate 401(k) plans by automatically enrolling workers. Under current law, workers must opt into such programs.

Another idea in a more developmental stage is a civilian version of the Thrift Savings Plan, the 401(k)-style program that federal employees can invest in on top of the contributions they make to Social Security.

If Bush's private accounts are taken off the table, the Democrats must have other savings ideas, the Democrats say.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&ncid=703&e=4&u=/ap/20050425/ap_on_go_co/social_security

No, they don't have to have any other ideas. Leaving it the hell alone is a perfectly good alternative.

Jeez, it's just like the run-up to the war in Iraq. The war-hawks all said "what's your alternative?" Well... we just keep doing what we were doing.

But no, they've been suckered again.

What part of "outside of the existing system" indicates a cave?

they are implicitly validating the assumption that "something needs to be done". That's a false assumption. In my view, the proper response would be to point out that the GOP is trying to hard-sell a stupendously bad solution to a problem that doesn't even exist.

There are plenty of alarmingly real problems that Congress could be addressing, instead of wasting time on this textbook case of attempting to "fix" something that isn't broken.

No ideas trumps bad ideas every day. Keep your freaking hands off social security money. Its really a quite simple "idea."