Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Bush Still Trying To Destroy Social Security
While we were all distracted by Alito, Bush crammed his Social Security privatization plan into the 2007 budget bill: Arrgh. Time to get suited up again!
Had he followed the link Phoenix Woman provided he might just find that he's in favor of raising his own taxes by about $1,000 per household:
Unlike Bush's generalized privatization talk of last year, we're now talking detailed numbers. On page 321 of the budget proposal, you see the privatization costs: $24.182 billion in fiscal 2010, $57.429 billion in fiscal 2011 and another $630.533 billion for the five years after that, for a seven-year total of $712.144 billion.
The "return on investment" he claims for Social Security is, of course, misleading. Social Security is not an investment. It is insurance. So our quick off the lip poster would also be in favor of insuring his home or his auto with lottery tickets.
Where pensions have been privatized, in Britain and in Chile, there has been massive corruption. Claims of huge returns have been disappointed as people discover the hidden costs and the substantial risks of investment.
Our poster would throw every one of his less fortunate brothers and sisters to the wolves in the hope that he could grab a little more. But as the link makes clear, he's only dooming the nation to higher taxes.
This is why America must pry the Republican parasite off.
Yes, I would happily put my retirement "insurance" into the stock market. Why? Because I'm in my twenties and forty years from know I'm pretty sure the American economy will have grown significantly, and hence my "insurance" plan along with it. If I were 60, 50 or even 40 maybe I would feel different. The thing is, I don't even get that choice with Social Security. All anybody really wants is the option, if the choice we make goes down in flames so be it. If someone else would rather not and stick with paying into the current system, so be it.
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