"My Social Security Insecurity" by Gerasimos Manolatos

Written by me =)

March 10, 2005

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500


Re: My Social Security Insecurity


Dear President Bush:

I am a college student and future beneficiary of Social Security. This letter is my response, as an informed citizen, to your actions related to the Social Security issue; measures which seek to marginalize a large portion of the American population – specifically, the elderly.

You are actively pursuing the privatization of Social Security, funneling an increasing percentage of workers’ payroll taxes, initially 66% of our contribution, into stocks and bonds through newly created individual investment accounts. However, these accounts, and the shifting of monies through the system requires capital. Lots of capital. Not only will the creation of these “personal accounts” cost the government $4.5 trillion, which like most social programs inevitably are paid by citizens, but taxpayers will have to forego a portion of their future Social Security benefits in order to open accounts with the companies managing the privatized Social Security system.

What is gravely problematic about the privatization plan, beyond the certain economic disaster a $4.5 trillion increase in federal spending would create, is that it does not guarantee any monetary aid for retirees. A simulation of the privatization plan using numbers provided by the Congressional Budget Office, a committee of “consultants” appointed by your fellow Republicans Dennis Hastert and Ted Stevens, indicates that when I reach retirement age in 2052, I would be receiving 45% less in benefits with your privatization plan than what the current Social Security system would pay. That is considering the stock market, in which my “personal accounts” would reside, does not slide into another recession and depreciate my savings even further.

Who could possibly then benefit from your plan, then? A better question would be: where is the money going? Remarks from Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, shed light on these concerns. Recently, he has publicly embraced your privatization plan pointing to the fact that more money could be generated with privatized accounts in the stock exchange as opposed to the current system, which according to Mr. Greenspan is “not working”. Yet, what Mr. Greenspan overlooks is the fact that Social Security is meant to be a security net for retirees, not a “get rich quick” scheme for Wall Street bulls. In fact, brokers and accountants are the real winners in the privatization proposal as they are forecasted to be endowed with over $900 billion of our tax dollars to oversee the implementation of private accounts. It is no wonder that in places like Chile and Britain, where privatization of Social Security has existed for quite some time, private pension companies are among the most distrusted and unpopular institutions. (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) As the gatekeeper of our nation’s financial wellbeing, it appears as if the superannuated Mr. Greenspan is the one “not working”.

More ironic and fundamentally disturbing is the fact that someone who was nicknamed “The Texecutioner” by his own Texas constituents after six crimson hued years as Governor of the state, is seeking to overhaul a government program affecting the livelihood of millions.

Mr. President, over the past 5 years you have destroyed relations with foreign nations by plunging a reluctant American population into a misdirected war – the “War on Terror”. Exaggerated and fabricated news headlines based on White House press releases, filled the airwaves with scary stories of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. You fooled many of the hardworking citizens of this country about Iraq’s impending nuclear bombs during the months leading up to the war, wherein you spent countless hours and finances on legitimizing invasive military force in a country halfway around the world.

Now, you are going around the country on a sixty-day, sixty-city “Bamboozle-Palooza” (as bloggers DailyKos and Atrios have named it), attempting to unleash, once more, a weapon of mass deception on the American public. However, you have stepped out of bounds with your push to revamp Social Security. Mr. President, Social Security is not Iraq.

Your track record of managing money further complicates the quality of your ability to lead and our ability to trust your intentions. While owner of the Texas Rangers during the 1990s, a title suspiciously acquired with a 1.8% ownership share, you succeeded in turning the team into the laughingstock of Major League Baseball’s American League. While Chairman of Spectrum 7, later merging with the Bush Exploration Company to form Arbusto, not only were you suspected of having familiar relations with the high ranking scoundrels at Enron, but your company had to be sold to Harken Energy Corporation as a result of its financial losses.

Similar to the irreprehensible and indefensible torture techniques used in our “War on Terror” to gain “intelligence”, the ends justify the means for you, Mr. President. The sale of your 1.8% ownership share of $600,000 investment in the Texas Rangers, a team which hovered around .500 in each of the 9 years of your ownership and were soundly defeated by he New York Yankees in their only two playoff appearances in 1996 and 1998, turned into an over $20 million windfall which you pocketed. How then can taxpayers be assured that your Social Security privatization plan is not yet another hocus-pocus act in which those in need suffer and feel hardship and our money magically materializes in your bedfellows’ bank accounts?

You recently addressed a hand-selected audience on one leg of your Social Security “Bamboozle-Palooza” tour, stating “It's time for us to set aside the partisan bitterness of Washington, D.C., and come together to make sure we have a Social Security system that works." However, the ignus fatuus created by your rhetoric intent on painting Social Security as a dying program has not, in this case, effectively served your means. Americans know Social Security works as is. We have evidenced the benefits of Social Security: nearly two-thirds of the elderly out of poverty since it’s inception in 1930. The deceitful Republican noise machine employed by your administration may have fooled us into going headfirst into, what you call, an “unending war”, but we have had enough of the gimmicks of deception by which you run this country. Benjamin Franklin once stated “tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don't have brains enough to be honest”. Mr President, you have yet to prove him wrong.


Yours faithfully,



Gerasimos Manolatos

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

savings plan

and no one is against voluntary addon payroll deductions for a TSP like plan.

Please educate yourself on what is the Bush proposal - if he had one :-)

Granted Bush's individual accounts at a broker has changed to TSP like limited choices, limiting the fees to something less than a Chilian 30%, and indeed perhaps less than the 1+% in Britain - but the carve out idea is destruction of SS and bears no relationship to the TSP function/use for Federal employees.

kick ass letter