(Social Security /Medicare riding on this election)Tough Issues, Awaiting

With SocialSecurityChoice.org (conservative -pushing for private savings accounts with ad of an hourglass emptying. "Time is running out." - but then ignoring the $ 1 trillion in "transition costs"), MoveOn.org (with their January ad of retired couples discussing Medicare upended when a shadowy figure in cowboy boots marked "GWB" literally pulls the rug out from under them), and The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities publishing the truth that projected shortfalls for Social Security have been greatly exaggerated and can be fixed by modest adjustments to future benefits or taxes, this should be a fun topic this year!


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/business/retirement/13ANDR.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1081865083-oqBigv7yWR1VWCtYEgFBWA

Tough Issues, Awaiting Their Turn
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON

<snip>The issues range from Social Security and Medicare to the stability of private pension plans, but much of the war boils down to a basic question: should Americans save for old age collectively as a nation, or as individuals through private savings and investments?<snip>

Democrats hope to tie the traditional distrust many older Americans have for proposals that seem to threaten Social Security or Medicare to broader economic anxieties of younger workers about job losses, shaky pension plans, shrunken private savings, the federal deficit and cutbacks in retiree health plans.

Republicans, who usually accuse their opponents of exaggerating threats to the programs, are resorting to fear as well. They are warning that the two giant entitlement programs will be overwhelmed by soaring costs as the nation's 76 million baby boomers begin to reach retirement age in 2011.<snip>

<snip>But most analysts also agree that the problems of Social Security, which provides old-age benefits, could be addressed with fairly modest fine-tuning to future benefits or to payroll taxes.

Peter R. Orszag, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former official in the Clinton administration, said the projected shortfall of Social Security — $3.5 trillion over the next 75 years — is barely one third the cost of making Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent.

Blurring the distinction makes it easier to justify an overhaul for Social Security. It also glosses over an awkward fact for Republicans: the acute deficits looming for Medicare became far worse as a result of the prescription drug bill that President Bush supported and signed.<snip>

Today, nearly 60 percent of workers covered by an employer pension plan rely entirely on 401(k) accounts or similar savings plans for individuals. But experts warn that most Americans set aside far less money in their 401(k) plans than they will need for retirement.<snip>

So the Bushites want to get their scummy paws on the loot. There is about $1.3 trillion in the trust fund now.

Social Security is a very clever system that not only provides retirement funds but also protects those funds against the vagaries of inflation. It also provides disability benefits that includes college expense benefits for young people with disabled parents.

Just a few years ago we saw huge losses in many 401k retirement plans. The go-go NASDEC dropped from more than 5000 to today's 2000, or so. With the Wall Street hype and scamming of investors, many 401k's did worse than the indexes.

Privatization will kill Social Security by drying up the influx of new money. The Bushites will then trumpet scare stories that Social Security is going bankrupt. People will panic, and Social Security will really go under due to the induced panic.

It would leave the US as the only Western industrialized country that has neither national health care nor retirement benefits for its citizens.

The Bushites want to take everything YOU have.