Tag: Social Security

Privatize Social Security?

Advocates for senior citizens and disabled people denounced Republican Presidential nominee John McCain for repeating his call for a Wall Street takeover of Social Security in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

They cited a Sept. 21 interview on CNBC in which McCain reiterated support for President Bush’s privatization scheme, in which workers would put part of their Social Security withholding in private “individual retirement accounts.” McCain told CNBC, “I still believe that young Americans ought to…put some of their money into accounts with their name on it.” He made the comment even though workers with private 401(k) plans are now watching as their retirement nest eggs go up in smoke.

The critics, speaking at an emergency Sept. 19 telephone news conference sponsored by Americans United for Change (AUC), pointed out that tens of millions of seniors and disabled people who depend on monthly Social Security checks would be facing poverty if Bush and the Republican leadership, had succeeded in privatizing the system.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research, said the current “turbulence” on Wall Street underlines the importance of Social Security’s ironclad guarantees. “This illustrates the risk” of “relying on private accounts,” Baker said. “Furthermore, the collapse of the housing bubble has destroyed much of the wealth of middle class baby boomers, making them even more dependent than ever on Social Security.”

Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute said, “After the events of this week, to not recognize the folly of privatizing Social Security suggests an imperviousness to evidence that is really quite scary in someone who wants to be president.”
Funk said AUC’s “Bush Legacy” bus, now half-way through its nationwide tour, focuses on the Bush-McCain drive to privatize Social Security. During the 2006 election AUC, which spearheaded the fightback against Social Security privatization, initiated the “Golden Promise Pledge to Protect Social Security and Oppose Privatization.” It was presented to every House and Senate candidate with the demand that they swear they will not support Bush’s drive to destroy Social Security. “The Bush Legacy bus just arrived at the offices of Republican Congressman, Tim Walberg in Battle Creek, Michigan, to ask him to sign the pledge,” Funk said. “Democrats are 100 percent unified in opposition to privatization. The Republicans like to play word games. We’re uncertain where they stand so we are going to confront them: Do you or don’t you support the Bush-McCain privatization scheme?”

JUst think what yoiur Social Security would be worth with the present crisis.

Can They Fix Social Security?

More than 50 million Americans will receive benefits this year, and 164 million workers are paying taxes into the system in expectation of getting money back when they retire or if they become too disabled to work. More than 6 million receive survivor benefits.
The average benefit is slightly more than $1,000 a month, amounting to about 40% of all income received by the elderly. For about a third of seniors, Social Security accounts for 90% of their retirement income.
Social Security is funded by a payroll tax equal to 12.4% of wages and salaries up to a maximum of $102,000. The tax is split between the worker and their employers. Unearned income, such as capital gains, dividends or interest, is not taxed. Most workers pay more in payrolls taxes than they do in federal income taxes.
Obama’s plan
Read more about Obama’s ideas.
Obama doesn’t want to cut benefits. “Obama will make it a top priority of his administration to protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries alike,” according to the position paper on his campaign website. “And he does not believe it is necessary or fair to hard-working seniors to raise the retirement age.”
That leaves raising revenue, which means higher taxes for somebody.
“The first place to look for ways to strengthen Social Security is the payroll tax system,” his campaign says. Rather than impose the payroll tax on all income above $102,000 to raise the money Social Security needs, Obama has suggested a sort of “doughnut hole” approach. Income between $102,000 and $250,000 wouldn’t have any payroll tax, but incomes above $250,000 would.
About 6% of American workers make more than $102,000, and many of them consider themselves middle class. About 3% of workers make more than $250,000 a year.
McCain’s plan
Read more about McCain’s ideas.
A solution to Social Security’s funding problems can’t be imposed by either political party, McCain has said. The only way to fix the system is to do what Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill did in 1983: get leaders of both parties in a room to come up with a plan.
McCain was a strong supporter of Bush’s plan to create private retirement accounts funded by payroll taxes.
He hasn’t backed away from that support, but he hasn’t made it a centerpiece of his campaign either. He did bring it up in one appearance on CNN: “I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money, which is their taxes, and put it in an account which has their name on it.”
Diverting tax revenues into private accounts, whatever their impact might be on the individual’s retirement security, wouldn’t help the solvency of Social Security because current benefits would still have to be funded. “It doesn’t solve the arithmetic problem,” Elmendorf said.
NOw if you would like a more vague idea of fixing Social Security, it would take a massive amount of research.  These are the vaguest of the vague.

Here We Go Again: Social Security

This has never been a good idea and you would think the with all his “experience”, John McCain would realize this fact.

McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, spoke several times last week about changing how the popular retirement program is funded, at one point calling it a “disgrace” that younger workers are forced to pay for a plan that, in his view, is unlikely to benefit them when they retire.

Democrats are gearing up to turn McCain’s stand on Social Security, and his willingness to consider a privatization plan, into a key campaign issue. They say changing the program in that way would undermine retirees’ benefits, and they hope to use the issue to harm the Arizona senator’s support among a set of voters who tilt toward him — seniors.

His comments seemed to suggest that McCain favored a new funding mechanism for Social Security benefits, such as private accounts. Later, on CNN, McCain seemed to fully embrace the idea of private accounts. “I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money, which is their taxes, and put it in an account which has their name on it,” he said. Participation would be a “voluntary thing,” he said, and “would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary.”

The remarks drew fire from Democrats, who accused McCain of failing to understand a system that since its creation in the 1930s has relied on payroll taxes from current workers to fund benefits for current retirees. Some supporters of this system say that allowing younger workers to divert money into private accounts would reduce the tax money needed to provide benefits for older workers once they retired.

Considering that McCain has been trying to demonstrate his understanding of Americans’ economic woes, his timing was odd — endorsing a new reliance on the stock market in the same week that the Dow Jones industrial average dipped to its lowest point in two years.

The Battle Over Entitlements

The Republicans are saying in this election cycle that the biggest problem that the country and government will face is how to pay for the entitlement programs, like Social Security, medicare, etc. There plan and one that McCain is embracing hardily is to give tax cuts and lower entitlement payments.

You know I have listened and thought on this subject for several days and I have come up with a novel idea—END THE WAR! (sarcasm intended) How many trillions, that is trillions with a “T”, is the war gonna cost the American taxpayer? Could not that money be spent here in this country on…I don’t know….entitlements?

Have you noticed that both candidates are promising jobs or emplyment. But they are not addressing the immediate concerns of the people. They both are giving obscure solutions to complex problems. Hell, I will promise you whatever you want if you will vote for me. My point is, they ALL have lied to you and you do not seem to care. You do not hold them accountable for their lies. Why is that?

Both plans seem to say, “screw the American taxpayer”. Why not? After all they are the ones that finance the whole damn government. Corporations get all the assistence they can stand, but yet the people and the entitlement programs have to stand raid after raid just to make a few a couple more bucks. At what point do the American people become the most important issue? At what point do the American people who have fought and worked for this country deserve an adequate life?

What part of this government is truly showing a concern for the American people? Better yet, what part of this government is a government for the people? Your vote is very important, so please use it wisely. Do not let them keep your ignorant, learn the issues and how it will realistically impact your life, not the lame promises of the past, but real issues and real solutions.