Congressional Republicans Agree to Launch Social Security Campaign

[papau]

GOP to sell "ownership and control, rather than 'privatization,' so as to get folks to screw themselves out of benefits, and to get Dem Senators Bill Nelson (Fla.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Kent Conrad (N.D.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), and Mark Pryor (Ark.) to "swing" to screwing the aged to protect tax cuts for the rich.

Indeed the WSJ's Jackie Calmes'was on point that " Some Republicans privately doubt that all members of their congressional conference understand the sensitive issues involved, such as the estimated $2 trillion transition cost for private accounts, future benefit reductions and possible payroll-tax increases for upper-income workers."

With Frank Luntz advising the GOP on how to talk about Social Security changes without alienating voters, how can they lose! I expect to see a lot of Frank on MSNBC!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49938-2005Jan30.html

washingtonpost.com
Congressional Republicans Agree to Launch Social Security Campaign

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 31, 2005; Page A04


WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. -- Congressional Republicans, after three months of internal debate, this weekend launched a months-long campaign to try to convince constituents that rewriting the Social Security law would be cheaper and less risky than leaving it alone, as the White House opened a campaign to pressure several Senate Democrats to support the changes.

The Republicans left an annual retreat in the Allegheny Mountains with a 104-page playbook titled "Saving Social Security," a deliberate echo of the language President Bill Clinton used to argue that the retirement system's trust fund should be built up in anticipation of the baby boomers' retirement.

The congressional Republicans' confidential plan was developed with the advice of pollsters, marketing experts and communication consultants, and was provided to The Washington Post by a Republican official. The blueprint urges lawmakers to promote the "personalization" of Social Security, suggesting ownership and control, rather than "privatization," which "connotes the total corporate takeover of Social Security." Democratic strategists said they intend to continue fighting the Republican plan by branding it privatization, and assert that depiction is already set in people's minds.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) plans to say Monday in a "prebuttal" to President Bush's State of the Union address that her party will not "let a guaranteed benefit become a guaranteed gamble."

The Republican's book, with a golden nest egg on the cover, urges the GOP to "talk in simple language," "keep the numbers small," "avoid percentages; your audience will try to calculate them in their head" and "acknowledge risks," because listeners "know they can lose their investments."<snip>

[Skidmore]

1. God these people are insufferable.

Pushing a crap shoot while easing regulations on pensions and the financial sector is a surefire formula for disaster down the line. Just let me have my cash and I'll take it to the nearest casino.

[ooglymoogly]

2. round and round we go

right down the drain

[papau]

4. Most 3rd world workers "own" their health care and retirement? - nice goal

:-(

[BR_Parkway]

3. So, who paid for this bullshit? More taxpayer dollars? n/t

[Old and In the Way]

5. Great!

Let the Republicans push this bigtime. This will be the issue to sink them in 2006.

[Jersey_Lib]

6. How would you fix Social Security

It is broken. No one can deny it. My kids won't see a penny of it. So what should be done to ensure that future generations receive Social Security?

Ideas?

[rehawk]

7. Means Testing

Why oh Why is this not even debated? If you have an income of over $100,000 a year, or some such number, no social security. So what if you paid in, it was there for you as an insurance policy, lucky you didn't need it. I have paid property taxes all my life to support schools, and never sent a child to one of them. I am not complaining, the society is better for schools. Well, the society is better off with a small guarenteed income for senior citizens that need it. Just my thought, maybe I am stupid.

[Old and In the Way]

9. No, you're not stupid.

But we do have a poster here who just can't stop drinking the Republican Kool-aid. His post is the essential Republican talking point....regurgitated without facts or comment.

BTW, welcome on board!

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Excellent notion, and I agree with one caveat.

For those who means-test out, keep it there as insurance for the other SS programs -- disability, dependent benefits, etc.

It IS insurance. You carry home insurance, without the expectation that your howse is ever going to burn down; you keep car insurance withoout the expectation that you are ever going to be in a wreck. So, you keep SS insurance without the expectation that you are ever going to be living on cat food. But you never know. Even rich people lost everything to Enron, and now depend on that meager SS income. That's why it's there.

[papau]

16. A welfare plan is not the goal - except for the GOP

:-)

[Old and In the Way]

8. Who says? George Bush?

He wants to borrow $2TT to "fix" it? No thanks. At present funding levels, it's secure until 2052. Thanks, but the Republicans have "fixed" enough things in the past 4 years. We can't afford any more of their "fixing".

But, if you want to fix it....raise taxes on the wealthiest. And increase the cap. Problem solved.

No one is stopping people from saving more money in private accounts (or , in Republican-speak now, personnal accounts). Just don't screw with an insurance program designed to offer all a minimum standard of living in their old age.

[Roland99]

10. Remove the upper limit of income for taxing for SS

Revoke other Bush tax cuts and set money aside into, yes, a lockbox.

[papau]

14. Wage cap gone is easiest fix

:-)

[flpoljunkie]

18. Hell, rescind Dubya's tax cuts for his base, the top 1%, and SS solvent

for decades to come, if not through the entire 21st century.

[Roland99]

19. And actually setup a trust fund that is not part of the General Fund

[Mel]

11. Idea

Stop listening to the Republican lies and read up on the issue. I suggest you start by reading Paul Krugman's pieces on Social Security.

Another thing if you have children under 18 and you died right now they would benefit from SSI that's Social Security Insurance.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Stop reading the Fear Factor MSM, for one thing.

1) Make the minimum wage a livable wage, then maintain it indexed to inflation. This would, obviously, increase the intake by SS by a vast margin, because low wage earners already contribute the greater part of SS. A doubling of the minimum wage would double the SS collected, and at the same time allow those low wage earners the chance to actually save a little on their own, returning SS to being the insurance program it was intended to be.

2) Raise the cap on SS from $90,000 to $150,000. I personally favor eliminating it altogether, but must admit that the powers that be will never go for it.

Those two moves would put SS in the black indefinitely.

ON EDIT

Thanks for the question -- we learn by asking. And welcome to DU.

[papau]

15. It is not broken - your kids will see 100% of it - But if economy grows

cold and average increase in GDP is 50% of past, the projection is your kids get 80% of what law currently provides -which is double what you get.

Only with the Bush 50% benefit cut do your kids get really screwed.

[newyawker99]

17. Hi Jersey_Lib!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Norquist Nemesis]

21. They told my generation the same thing

(Born in 1959...end of the boomers) Social Security needs some tweeking occasionally. That's the way it was intended to be managed and maintained...not for it to be eliminated.

It sounds like you might be of the age group no one is talking about. The end of the boomers. Will your kids be willing and able to support you and their family if, God forbid, you have a catastrophe in your old age?

As far as solutions, the first thing would be to not allow the federal government to raid the fund! Conservatives holler and screech about "tax and spend liberals". Even if it were true (which it isn't), at least that is a pay as you go approach. Compare that with the "charge it!" Republicans. Both are responsible for raiding the fund, but one has to remember which party's been in charge of the purse strings.

The second thing is to raise (or eliminate) the cap. Before you scream "astronomical tax increase typical of Democrats", take a look a dear Ronnie's history.

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200310290853.asp

[Pam-Moby]

20. Social Security is not supposed

to be just an investment that is there when you retire. It also is an insurance policy that is there if someone is disabled for what ever reason. They keep treating like an investment account and fail to state what it actually is,is insurance. This is just a means of attempting to boost the economy with new money. But who will be there when the stock market fails and the investment that is supposed to support you is gone,. They need to go on to issues that actually need working on and not something that is working and can be fixed with slight adjustments without overhauling it!!