From MoveOn: Tell Congress to save Social Security

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:07:30 -0800 <02:07:30 PM EST>
From: "Tom Matzzie, MoveOn.org" <moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
Dear MoveOn member,

Social Security is the crown jewel of progressive government -- a singular achievement that has reshaped what used to be penniless old age. Now George Bush and Republican leaders have made phasing out Social Security as we know it through privatization and massive benefit cuts their top priority for 2005.

Even House Republicans are skeptical about the scheme. According to a recent Washington Post article, as many as 40 Republican members are considering voting against it. So the final vote is likely to be extremely close, and Bush and the Wall Street firms that stand to make billions are pulling out all the stops. According to some reports, they're raising up to $100 million for advertising to apply pressure.

Bush started his publicity blitz on Tuesday, and now the clock is ticking for House and Senate members to state their position. We need to send them a message before it is too late. Let your members of Congress know that you want them to protect Social Security by signing our petition at the link below:

http://www.moveon.org/socialsecurity/

Our goal is to deliver 200,000 signatures on a petition to Congress when they return after the January 20 inauguration. That is a big goal in such a short time but we know that you can help make it happen by forwarding this alert to your friends, family and coworkers.

In pushing this issue, Bush is working out of the same play book that he used for the war in Iraq. First, he's manufacturing a crisis, by grossly distorting the scale of the threat. Then, when Americans are convinced that the problem is clear and imminent, he'll propose a reckless solution -- privatization -- which just happens to help a lot of his corporate friends.

And of course, the gap between Bush's rhetoric and the truth is enormous. Social Security is a complicated issue, but the basics are really pretty simple:

-- Social Security provides monthly benefits to some 44 million Americans who are retired, disabled or the survivor of a deceased parent. It provides most of the income for older Americans -- some 64 percent of their support. It has lifted generations of seniors out of poverty.

-- Social Security is not in crisis. That is an outright lie perpetrated in order to create the urgency for radical changes. Under conservative forecasts, the long-term challenges in Social Security do not manifest themselves until 2042. Even then Social Security has 70 percent of needed funds. That shortfall is smaller than the amount needed in 1983, the last time we overhauled Social Security. George Bush's Social Security crisis-talk is an effort to create a specter of doom -- just like the weapons of mass destruction claim in Iraq.

-- Phasing out Social Security and replacing it with privatized accounts means one thing: massive cuts in monthly benefits for everybody. Social Security privatization requires diverting taxes used to pay current benefits into privatized accounts invested in risky stocks. Without that money, Social Security benefits will inevitably be cut -- some proposals even cut benefits of current retirees. These benefit cuts are inevitable, since diverting Social Security money into privatized accounts means less money to pay current and future benefits.

-- Every serious privatization proposal raises the Social Security retirement age to 70. That might be fine if you're a Washington special interest lobbyist but it is incredibly unfair to blue-collar Americans with tough, physical jobs, or for African Americans and Latinos with lower life expectancies.

-- Privatization means gambling with your retirement security. There is probably an appropriate place for a little stock market risk in retirement planning -- but it isn't Social Security. Privatization exposes your entire retirement portfolio to stock market risks -- and the risk that you'll outlive any of your savings at retirement. You can't outlive your Social Security benefit.

-- So who does benefit? Wall Street. Giant financial services firms have been salivating for decades over the prospect of taking over Social Security. Wall Street would make billions of dollars in profit by managing the privatized accounts -- money that would come directly from your benefits.

So far, the Democrats are united in the cause of protecting Social Security. If the Democrats are going to show some real backbone we need to back them. Show your support by signing the petition at the link below:

http://www.moveon.org/socialsecurity/

And after signing the petition, please help debunk the misinformation that's circulating by forwarding this email on to your friends and family.

Thanks for all you do.

--Tom Matzzie and Eli Pariser
MoveOn.org
January 13th, 2005

P.S.: For more information, here are some good resources:

Campaign for America's Future on Social Security
http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/socialsecurity/index.cfm

The Social Security Network by The Century Foundation
http://www.socsec.org/

"The Iceberg Cometh" by Paul Krugman. The New York Times. January 11, 2005 (registrationrequired)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/opinion/11krugman.html?ex=1263272400&en=a6842a621ebe11ad&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

"Bush Launches PR Campaign to change Social Security" by Richard Benedetto and Judy Keen, USA TODAY January 11, 2005
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-11-bush-social-security_x.htm?csp=34


---------- appended below is the letter I submitted ------


The impending doom of Social Security is just another VaporScare. It is an excuse to force Americans to invest in Bush's new Enronomy.

If we want to save social security, then we should remove the cap that allows Bill Gates to pay as much into Social Security as someone making $90,000 a year.

We could also have a very generous "means testing," which would prohibit anyone making more than $1 million a year in salary, compensation or capital gains from collecting Social Security.

I would love to have a cheap and easy way to invest my money more aggressively. Building that means into social security is the wrong answer for the wrong program at the wrong time.

I have tried my hand at (poorly) investing in the stock market. Do you want to know what happened? The brokerage fees for simply HOLDING my money (without any transactions) eventually cost me more than my stock was worth.

Instead of building "personal accounts" into Social Security, how about instead creating IRA-type accounts that consumers can use to invest in stocks without paying any fees, but only if they choose to do so.

Personally, if I had the choice where to invest my money right now, it would be in gold and Euros. Our economy is going crash like Laura Bush's car at a stop sign.

I mean, they're getting the tax-breaks, and they would have no reason to claim SS benefits based on NEED - so, what's a small little sacrifice on their part?

Thanks for posting.

Rescind the tax cuts for the rich.

This a crock of crap.

Why do the poor and middle class pay a higher percentage of their earnings to social security taxes than those who make more than 83,000? Get rid of the cap and make social security fair.