Posted on 04/28/2005 4:00:18 PM PDT by Howlin
FROM WASHINGTON
Pres. Bush Press Conf. Tonight
At the White House, Pres. Bush holds an evening press confer-ence. The President intends to talk about his Social Security reform plan and his energy plan. He is also likely to get questions on other topics such as the John Bolton nomination, Senate filibuster rules on judicial nomina-tions, House ethics rules, etc.
Live at 8:00 P.M. EDT
Watch live from the White House web site:
(Link on right)
or
(link at top)
and all the usual suspected news outlets.
They do because you still pay into the system but draw less from the system because you are withdrawing from your own savings!
Why? You don't get enough of that around here? ;-)
consider the nuance:
returns only slighty better than the ultraconservative figures assumed for discussion purposes today would greatly ease the consequences of progressive price indexing or any other means of addressing the actuarial deficit
if the returns are worse, we'll be fully socialist before any of this even matters and after much blood in the streets
"As a matter of fairness, I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get."
To that, I say there is no free lunch. The actuarial deficit cannot be closed for free. Either you increase risk to get higher expected returns, with a downside presented by the left side of the bell curve of results, or you raise taxes. Granted, I don't think Bush really meant what he said, but well, he said it.
The figures are not ultraconservative. They assume a return equal to the 5 year treasury bond rate, which is of course a very low risk rate. The proposal as I understand it is to have private accounts borrow at 3% over inflation against the balance of their "traditional" SS benefit, a bit higher than the five year treasury bond rate, and to invest in stocks at a 100% margin (investing in bonds would not move the ball, except perhaps slightly backward if anything for the recipient). If stocks do not generate lower rather than returns higher than 3% over inflation, the recipient will be worse off. But Uncle Sam will be there, if it is much worse off. Thus the moral hazard.
Was the NYTimes the only available link?
Why, pray tell, should I listen to someone who can't even spell? I absolutely do NOT support President Bush's plan to privatize SS and put big commissions in the hands of his stock broker buddies,thereby increasing the federal deficit.
Bush's dog won't hunt.
and you either don't see a moral hazard in the system as currently constructed, or think that it can be practically resolved better how?
And not one "journalist" asked the President about that.
As a recent op-ed article stated, educating the American people about an issue they haven't been thinking about before is a long, drawn out process.
Social security reform is an education process first.
Nothing GWB said tonight made a difference to you because you have already thought about this issue.
But for many Americans who haven't thought much about this issue and the energy bill issues, this was a good, neighborly presentation of the problem and some of the proposed solutions.
Bill Clinton talked "purty", but by the end of his Presidency most people knew everything he said was a lie.
So, the straightforward, awkward Jimmy Stewart approach does get through to more people now than a slick lie.
The Prez did a good job. He broke out of the censorship wraps that the MSM have put him in.
Just so we know where you are coming from.
the free lunch is economic growth. Economic growth makes his statement feasible without tax increases, and frankly also with or without private accounts. Obviously your counter-argument would be that my definition of greater benefits (which I define in real terms) is not correct.
We will always take care of poor old folks. I don't worry about that. The system needs some tweaking to close the deficit with a cut of benefits one way or the other for the old well to do (like me eventually), cutting benefit rises to inflation rather than wages, and maybe raising the retirement age one more year. It is not hard. I have researched it.
Yes, I'm a retired federal employee and former union member. And I want to sustain my current level of benefits and projected future SS benefits, when I become eligible and of age to collect SS. That's my position, and I'm sticking to it.
Conservative thinking:70% of the electorate likes SS. The fault is not with the politicians. The fault is with the 70% of the electorate who like big government SS.
Liberal thinking: 70% of the electorate likes SS. The fault is with the politicians for not protecting us from our big government loving selves.
The blame belongs squarely with the 70% who love SS. But that's not what you think.
Nor, should he be relied on to do so.
The actuarial deficit posits and factors in economic growth. Yes, under the present system, if we tax ourselves to pay for it, and it does not slow economic growth, then yes, retirees will get more because benefits are tied to the growth in wages, not inflation. That has to go. Bush said otherwise, overall.
Bush overall in the news conference was the best I have ever seen him at his game, totally in command. He really is on top of the issues. I still think private accounts are snake oil on the margin, for reasons few want to read anymore, but yes, he was "persuasive." Granted, the reporters are not equipped to deal with something this technical, so in that sense, Bush got a free ride in that format.
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