http://mediamatters.org/items/200502280005Memo to CBS' Bob Schieffer: It's not just critics; Bush administration admits private accounts cost a bundle, don't address solvency
While questioning Senator John E. Sununu (R-NH) about the effect on the federal budget of partially privatizing Social Security, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer stated on the program's February 27 broadcast that "critics say that the plan to create these personal savings accounts will cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion down the line and does nothing to resolve the problem of solvency with the system
." But these claims do not depend on the credibility of unnamed "critics"; the Bush administration itself has confirmed that they are accurate.
An official White House outline of Bush's proposal admits that partial privatization will cost $754 billion in its first ten years, through 2015. But this estimate is misleadingly low since under this proposal, private accounts are not fully phased in until the last five years of the ten-year window, and the administration did not provide cost estimates for subsequent decades. Using the same assumptions as the administration, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated that the proposal would cost $4.9 trillion through 2028.<snip>
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