Big Bush Donors Gunning to Kill SS As We Know It

[BurtWorm]

According to Howie Kurtz

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/kurtzhoward/

Pretty Ugly, Pretty Fast
Wednesday, Jan 05, 2005; 7:56 AM

Prediction: The Social Security debate is going to turn pretty ugly pretty fast.

It's quite civilized at the moment, with reporters and op-ed types jousting over economic assumptions and actuarial rates. But New Year's Day brought a Washington Post report that the coming campaign over Bush's privatization plan will take on the coloration of a full-fledged political war, complete with television ads. Such groups as Progress for America (which spent millions on Bush's reelection), the Club for Growth and the National Association of Manufacturers are planning big-budget campaigns, and the AARP is already spending 5 mil on full-page opposition ads over the next two weeks. Total propaganda spending could easily top $50 million....

[BurtWorm]

1. By the way, Howie still displays his whorishness

even as his own facts stare him square in the face :eyes: :

"This is an argument we very much need to have, for the difficulties of the nation's biggest retirement program have been swept under the rug for way too long by timid politicians who want to punt the problem to their successors. Bush deserves credit for making it part of his campaign, although he never said--and still hasn't--exactly what he would do without cutting benefits or borrowing trillions more. (The deficit, you may recall, is already nearly a half-trillion, meaning that we're living beyond our collective means and sending the bill to future generations.)"

[whistle]

2. Yes, conservatives will tell the people that the Social Security...

...fund is threatened, but will never show actual worksheets and facts and figures that support that claim. The reason is that all of these crisis projections of Social Security falling into rapid and extreme deficits are based on the one sided set of Republican/neo-conservative assumptions that as Social Security claimants rise (from 41 million now to 65 million in 20 years) that all other factors in the economy, GDP, wages, employment and so forth remain stagnant. That just isn't so!

Realistic projections show Social Security as being financially solvent for at least 75 years. Look at the record of the system since it was first set-up under FDR.

<link> http://www.cepr.net/publications/facts_social_security.pdf

The system is not broken and will function quite well under the current arrangement. The real opposition comes from non-wage earners (investors who must pay into the social security fund on a matching basis with the workers) This group opposes their 7.0% share on wages up to $90,000.00 annually. Why? Because it means that the owner class wants to grab every last cent. They also would deprive workers of their 6.75% share by either taking that money away from wages or forcing workers to invest in private retirement fund programs run and controlled by the companies.