Posted on 04/28/2005 6:38:41 PM PDT by Brilliant
WASHINGTON, April 28 - President Bush said tonight that Social Security should be adjusted so that benefits for people with lower incomes would grow faster than for those who were more affluent.
Mr. Bush said the change would go a long way toward solving the retirement system's problems and would keep a solemn pledge to people who have worked hard for a lifetime but have not amassed great wealth: "You will not retire into poverty."
Speaking at a White House news conference on the eve of the symbolic 100-day mark of his second term, Mr. Bush again pushed for voluntary personal retirement accounts within Social Security for younger workers. And he said again that he was open to good ideas from either party, provided the suggestions, if carried out, would not "raise the payroll tax rate or harm the economy."
While ruling out raising the 6.2 percent payroll tax rate for Social Security, perhaps significantly he did not rule out raising the ceiling, now $90,000, on which earnings are taxed for Social Security.
"As we fix Social Security, some things won't change," Mr. Bush said, recognizing that for decades any talk of changing the system has been considered the political equivalent of Russian roulette. "Seniors and people with disabilities will get their checks. All Americans born before 1950 will receive the full benefits."
The president also called on the Senate to pass his energy program, the outlines of which have already been endorsed by the House, so that the United States can be energy-independent. Among his ideas, which he said involve obtaining more energy through "innovative and environmentally sensitive ways," is drilling in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"My administration is doing everything we can to make gasoline more affordable," Mr. Bush said, alluding to a recent trend that polls show is annoying the American people and perhaps endangering him politically. "There will be no price-gouging at gas pumps in America."
The president also touched on several other hot-button issues. He declined to offer a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, but said they would begin to come home "as soon as possible," and he insisted that the United States and its allies were making progress there.
Mr. Bush said, too, that he stood by his embattled nominee for United Nations ambassador, John R. Bolton, and that Mr. Bolton's by now well known abrasiveness might stand him and the United States in good stead.
"John Bolton is a blunt guy," he said during the hourlong session with reporters. "John Bolton can get the job done at the United Nations."
Mr. Bush and his top aides have repeatedly said that the United Nations needs to adapt to the 21st century instead of being little more than an international debating society.
But Mr. Bush dwelled heavily on his Social Security proposals, emphasizing, in response to a question, that any Congressional action that addressed the system's solvency - but did not allow for private accounts - would be unacceptable to him.
He said these accounts would allow only for safe, conservative investments, like Treasury bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, which has never defaulted. (The president's Democratic critics chided him recently for referring to the $1.7 trillion in Treasury securities that make up the Social Security trust fund, amassed by the current accumulating surplus, as little more than a pile of i.o.u.'s. These securities, too, are backed by the government's full faith and credit.)
Mr. Bush, in the fourth prime-time news conference of his presidency, said his two-month campaign to promote his ideas for Social Security had convinced him that the American people "understand that Social Security is heading for serious financial trouble." "Congresses have made promises they cannot keep for a younger generation," Mr. Bush said. By 2041, he asserted, "Social Security will be bankrupt."
Mr. Bush did not go into detail, in his opening remarks, on the inexorable trends that actuaries envision as baby-boomers move into retirement. Actuaries have forecast that the retirement system, which now takes in more than it pays out, will start to run a deficit in 2017.
From 2017 until 2041, the system could still pay full benefits by drawing on its store of Treasury securities in which the present incoming surplus is now invested. And starting in 2041 - the point at which Mr. Bush said bankruptcy would occur - the system would be able to pay benefits at only about 72 percent, unless changes are made in the meantime.
"Social Security is too important for politics as usual," Mr. Bush said, after months in which the White House and its Republican allies have argued bitterly with Democrats, who generally oppose the concept of individual retirement accounts within Social Security because they fear the change will undermine the system without fixing its admitted long-range problems.
As for opinion polls showing that many people are wary of his ideas for the retirement program, Mr. Bush said, as he has many times and in connection with many issues, that he does not worry about them. "You know," he said, "if a president tries to govern based upon polls, you're kind of like a dog chasing your tail."
Giving money to congress to fix its over-budgeting problems, is like giving more money to a fat kid to convince him to stop buying so much candy.
It IS a welfare poverty program.
preach on brother !
I loved it when he said "If you were born in 1950 or earlier, you wouldn't get cut." I was born in 1951. Guess I have to put off retirement for a few more years...
That's not how it's been sold to the American people. If they are going to start referring to it as a poverty program, then we're talking sleight of hand here, and someone needs to call them on it.
SS already is a poverty program. Those who rely on it exclusively, are way below the poverty limit.
Anyone else but you then?
You are on the wrong site.
I'm 46. I've been paying into this Ponzi scheme for 22 years. As I calculate it, I'll pay into the Ponzi scheme for another 21 years, and then it will go broke just as I am retiring.
I would hardly say "I've got mine."
This changes very little. Social Security is, and always has been, a wealth transfer program. Money is taken from one group and given to another. You have no vested rights in Social Security (Fleming v. Nestor) and Social Security taxes (and they are taxes not "contributions" or savings) do not have to be spent on Social Security benefits (Helvering v. Davis).
This change just makes it more obvious that Social Security is a welfare program. Perhaps that will help people realize that the solution is not to save it, but to end it ("end it don't mend it" maybe?). The real problem, like all other Social Security reform ideas, is that the current retirees get a free ride. This is an intergenerational transfer of wealth and an intergenerational problem. It seems unfair that only one generation bears the burden of solving it. The current retirees made Social Security the "third rail" and delayed reform; they should not leave the rest of us holding the bag.
Always keep mind when talking about Social Security money, how much one pays in and how much one gets, none of this money is ever invested, it is all spent.
If I offered you a retirement plan like this, would you opt for it?
I think the investment option would be a good choice.
What it does is it highlights the difference between the REAL social security and the fraudulent social security that has been sold to the American people. If they want to finally come clean and tell us that it's just another poverty program then they've got to atone for all the lies they've been telling us for the last 60 years. And why should we trust them now?
Maybe we ought to demand our money back? At least those born after 1950 should get everything back they paid in no?
Since they claim it is solvent and all that..then there shouldnt be no problem returning our investment.
Heh Heh..fat chance of that.
>>Well, I guess I should state the wealthy dont pay it, those who still earn an income do.
Those with wealth would do well to not pay hardly any taxes.<<
There is no way around it on the 1st 90k.
You just want the older guy to get screwed more so that you can cut your losses.
Social Security IS a welfare plan.
Why don't we just turn every program into an anti-poverty program?
The left has been lying to us for 60 years, telling us that if we put this money into social security, then we would be assured of receiving social security benefits in our old age. Now they are doing a switcharoo, telling us that if we made a lot of money, and were so stupid to put it into social security, then thank you very much, they are going to give it to someone else.
Politicians are scum.
Personally, I think we should just accept the Dems' claims that there is nothing wrong with social security, do nothing, and then when it goes bankrupt, seize the assets of anyone who served in government for the previous 60 years to pay for the deficiency. Afterall, it's a fraud that they've committed. They should be held liable.
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