What happened to the Rethugs plan to gamble Social Security in the stock market?

[NNN0LHI]

We don't hear too much about that any more. The Dems should bring it up more often.

Don

[I Have A Dream]

1. You're exactly right!

:thumbsup:

[Double T]

2. Can YOU imagine the disaster if the GD rethugs had been successful in privatizing Social Security?

Many retirees are NOW going to have a super lean retirement if they can afford retiring at all. I am a lifetime member of AANRP; the American Association of NEVER Retired People.

[CrispyQ]

3. Don't think the fight for Social Security is over.

They are still trying to get their greedy little paws on our money.

Looting Social Security
By William Greider

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090302/greider/single?rel=nofollow
snip...

Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea--Washington's leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly.

These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what's happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as "fiscal reform." In fact, it's the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud.


Defending Social Security sounds like yesterday's issue--the fight people won when they defeated George W. Bush's attempt to privatize the system in 2005. But the financial establishment has pushed it back on the table, claiming that the current crisis requires "responsible" leaders to take action. Will Obama take the bait? Surely not. The new president has been clear and consistent about Social Security, as a candidate and since his election. The program's financing is basically sound, he has explained, and can be assured far into the future by making only modest adjustments

more at link...

[stray cat]

4. Good thing McCain/Palin are not president and VP

[OHdem10]

5. Just watch---They are already pushing to have SSReform, Medicare

Reform. In fact they are asking for a Commission be formed . The Commission write up the Reform and make Congress vote up or down.

They even say there must be cuts to these Programs.

[Last Stand]

10. So ain't Obama.

Medicare was fine before Bush fixed it. Now that it's privatized, it's a mess. Inefficient red tape. Only good thing is medication coverage.

[MineralMan]

6. Personally, I think that plan to privatize SS was designed

to shore up the stock market. It didn't happen, and the stock market bombed.

I hate to be that cynical, but...

[OHdem10]

7. You are most observant. Now we know why they were salivating

for SS MONEY.

[Kansas Wyatt]

8. They had to have S.S. in the stock market to keep the illusion going...

'That everything was booming, and we had never had it so good.'

Now, when the smoke has faded and the mirrors lay in shattered shards, those who had hoped to siphon off Social Security to the top in the stock market, are finding it harder to swindle money from their exposed inflated stock market racket.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

9. I *think* some of our own dems, the blue dogs, are pushing

a plan to privatize SS. I could be wrong, I hope I am.

[slay]

11. I was just thinking about that today

These fuckers KNEW this was coming - and they wanted people to lose SS money as well. I swear their goal is the destruction of the middle class. :mad: :grr:

[4_TN_TITANS]

12. I've said before, I firmly believe

that the 2005 push to flood the market w/ SSI funds was an attempt by * to float his pResidency and disaster into the next administration.