Posted on 02/05/2005 9:35:47 PM PST by tbird5
President Bush's State of the Union address on February 2 forcefully staked his presidency on the issue of Social Security reform built around personal accounts for younger workers. It is clear that Bush intends this issue to be the centerpiece of his domestic agenda.
There is much to be said for the idea, which has been advocated by many conservatives for years. Such accounts would fulfill a key principle of making individuals more responsible for their own well-being and less dependent on a federal entitlement. They would allow younger workers to begin accumulating wealth more rapidly. They might strengthen the economy as well, since some of the money might be invested in economically productive enterprises. Some suggest that, if done well, personal accounts could also have the political effect of gaining votes for Republicans by expanding the size of the small-investor class.
Indeed, if one were designing a federal retirement program from scratch, this is almost certainly the way one would want to do it. It is more consistent with individual liberty and individual responsibility, with limited government and a strong private sector, than Social Security as it was actually designed and has evolved. It is a post-collectivist program for a post-collectivist age.
Not least, many conservatives will not fail to notice that a defeat of the President's plan could bring a sharp halt to the momentum that he so dearly won on November 2, thus endangering the rest of his extensive domestic agenda.
Despite all of these facts, however, there are a number of reasons that conservatives should think very carefully before jumping on the Bush Social Security bandwagon.
(Excerpt) Read more at claremont.org ...
The Republican Party, the party of slightly smaller government than the democrats want. This party needs to get a set and start trimming down the government.
Not just trimming. We need to cut down some old growth trees.
I know but one step at a time.
Precisely. And this would have the benefit of de-politicizing at least a bit of our economics. As could some of the other alternatives to our present income tax system.
These proposals appear to be a diversion. If anything, the campaign to reform Social Security will require focus. Adding Medicare and other programs to the mix will only make a tall order that much taller.
Private accounts in Social Security are a big step in that direction. If it's not going into the "SS Trust Fund & Amalgamated Lockbox", Congress can't spend it.
The transition cost alone should be enough to inspire caution. Estimated by the administration itself at $754 billion over the next decade, and trillions more beyond that, the program figures to either balloon the debt or put substantial upward pressure on taxes. Young workers may find that the gains from private accounts will be offset by higher income taxes, higher inflation, or both.This point is all the more salient since administration officials themselves have recently acknowledged that the President's plan would not actually improve Social Security's solvency. It is also given greater weight by the administration's own lack of fiscal discipline to this point, which has given little reason for confidence that it will try to make up some of the cost with lower domestic spending elsewhere.
If they'd keep their filthy hands off our money, perhaps we could build a reservoire. They owe Boomers Trillions! Now they changed the age and will cut the amounts on them. What's so hard to understand about "the lock box." It works. It's the only good thing Al Gore ever had to say. Yet even today, they rip off the money and get away with it, all the while crying that the fund is going broke.
One solution....take SS out of the general fund and put it back where it was before LBJ used it to fund the Viet Nam war and mask his deficit spending.
I think the Republicans are more likely to reform the system, because it will take power away from the Democrats. However, taxes will be exacted one way or the other.
Yes there will always be taxes but taxes on income is wrong. How about a national sales tax? Anything is better than what we have now.
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