Posted on 01/23/2005 9:59:48 AM PST by ReleaseTheHounds
The American Association of Retired People is the biggest obstacle to President Bush’s plan to modernize Social Security to include individual savings accounts for younger workers. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote that the AARP is “dead set against” Social Security reform. AARP has already launched a $5 million plan to scare older Americans into believing that the President’s proposal is dangerous and will steal Social Security benefits from current retirees.
But this is a misleading argument at best. President Bush has explicitly stated that he will not cut benefits for current retirees. Current beneficiaries have nothing to worry about from President Bush’s Social Security reform proposals. Still, that hasn’t stopped the AARP from waging a campaign to mislead citizens and rally its’ 35 million members.
So why does the AARP oppose Social Security reform? It seems that the AARP has a single public policy agenda – to lobby Congress to provide ever more subsidies to the retired community. What that really means is transfer wealth from the young to the old.
Is that what most of our older Americans really want? Is that what’s really best for our country? Certainly many older Americans would support President Bush’s proposal to give young Americans a chance to own their own retirement savings – a chance to pursue the American dream of savings and accruing wealth over the course of their working life.
Here’s what you can do. Visit www.NoThanksAARP.com and sign the petition, stating that you pledge to never become a member of the AARP.
Once you’ve signed the petition, we urge you to educate current AARP members about the facts on Social Security reform: educate them about how the AARP is trying to stop the President Bush’s reform proposal. Tell them how AARP is trying to kill a reform that will improve the lives and futures of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
You can also tell them to quit the AARP by Calling 1-888-687-2277: Urge them to: “Tell the AARP that I no longer want to be a member of the AARP since they oppose Social Security reform. Tell the AARP that I care about the future of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren!”
The goal of this petition is to show the members of Congress that Americans are sick and tired of the AARP’s scare tactics. President Bush has courageously decided to strengthen and modernize Social Security to provide a better deal for young Americans. We can’t afford to let the Greedy AARP stop this important initiative!
Fair enough. I apologize for assuming you were older. :)
Point of fact, I don't think it's fair to stick them with the bill, either, but the fact remains that it's unfair to stick US with it, too, on that basis. They have an opportunity here to fix things that their parents didn't take...or didn't see coming, anyway.
It's going to be very difficult to work this out. I think the best that we can hope for is to have everyone a little ticked off than either A)punt the ball downfield or B)stick it to one group in particular. Slowly phasing out SS in it's current form and bringing in some kind of federal 401K is probably the best way to go. I'm no expert, so I don't know how exactly to accomplish it, but I'm sure there is a way.
What I'm hoping for is that someone will come up with a better idea. It may be a vain hope, but ...
The current system will go into the red (according to current predictions) by 2018. We can either come up with a lower-cost solution now (like what is currently being discussed, and which has worked in Great Britain, Chile, and other places) or we can begin raising taxes on everybody to pay out the promised benefits, or some portion thereof.
Where is the crook? Who is crooked? Who is trying to screw "us" and what are they trying to gain?
Any person living a normal life span will withdraw many times more than he contributes. That's not a retirement plan, it's wealth transfer.
The only REAL fix is privitization or drastic payment cuts coupled with means testing. Anything else is delaying the day of reckoning, something we've done too many times in the past.
This one was easy. Signed the petition with no hesitation.
But IS it a real fix?
What happens when Gen-X happy retiree opens up his account and he doesn't have anything in it because the fool lost it all in the stock market?
What happens to the stock market when everyone pulls their cash to fund their happy years in a camper?
What happens to that $2 Trillion interest compounding debt that the pols are pushing hard to sling around our necks? In the long run, is that really going to be cheaper than the $10 Trillion shortfall? I need to see how it will be paid for before I can decide yes or no on that question. If the fix costs more than the problem, then it's really no fix at all, now is it?
Considering the fact that there is massive unrest in Europe on pension reforms, I wouldn't use them as an example. I have no wish to repeat that scenario here.
FMCDH(BITS)
Thanks, Jack... I'm a few years ahead of you, but I've been trashing AARP stuff for years. It's time they be taken on just like Moore and Soros. It's time to reform these government Ponzi schemes!
No Freepmail - it must have gone awry.
I'm 42. I retire in another 25 years, assuming they don't raise the age and I retire as soon as I'm eligible.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the last of the baby boomers peter out born circa 1950s.
So, I get to pay for them all before I retire. Happy day.
My Grandfather used to get a pension from the auto factory he worked in, he had 10-15 apartments he rented out, and bought a new Cadillac every 2-3 years. He used think that the world owed him that money from SS.
My bad. It was to freeper twotone. Very busy today and many beers.
FMCDH(BITS)
What happens to the stock market when everyone pulls their cash to fund their happy years in a camper?
To be honest, if someone is fool enough to not pay attention to their retirement funds, then they deserve what they get. If they don't understand how to manage those funds, then perhaps they should teach themselves, or ask for help in managing that fund. If they suffer due to willful ignorance or an excess of foolish pride, they bring it on themselves. People are usually well-motivated to protect what is theirs.
As for the other, there are always going to be more retirees in waiting with their funds still invested. The market may fluctuate somewhat when the demographics change, but overall, how much more cash would be infused into the market to begin with? That alone would initially distort the market, I suppose. The market would adjust if folks decided to traipse around the country on all their money instead of keeping it in a fund, as well.
As I say, I'm no expert, but that seems to be a pretty fair assessment.
Heh heh heh...well, I got to pay for you too, and my Dad got to pay for me. Where's the beef? Besides it being a ponzi scheme?
FMCDH(BITS)
Screw AARP and their pyramid scheme! Senile geezers.
Those clowns sent me a membership application about one month ago. As a lifetime member of the DAV, VFW, Shriners, and other patriotic organizations. I threw that POS membership application in the trash can. I will never be a member of a group who let's the democrats control their lives. NSNR.
I'll retire at the age of 51 - maybe 52 (if I decide not to buy back the first 6 months of my employment, which were on probation & I didn't get PERS benefits). Outrageous, I know. And folks are (rightly) unhappy about the PERS system in OR. I'll have put in 30 years, & will end up with a pension close to what I made while working. Which is why I have no problem with giving up SS. My plan, assuming I actually lived to receive it, was to invest anything I got from SS into a mutual fund to go to my three newphews.
I could work longer, but I've always been a very frugal sort (conservative, you might say) & have an IRA & a 403b. PERS should have been set up better to begin with, but just as with folks in private business, my account should have been portable (it's not). Lots of things could've been done better.
Signed. Socialist Security = Economic Cannibalism
Exactly right WarEagle. I'm 62 and I can see the good sense in the Bush proposal, did folks check their brains in at the door? I've been hoping someone would come up with an investment plan for SS, that's the sort of thing that keeps this good ol' USA economic engine runnin', NOT TAXES.
I've been refusing the AARP geezer crowd for years. I used to take a marks-a-lot and put a black border on their membership drive requests with a special note about what I thought of the organization. Funny, I haven't received any more mail from them in a long time so you see, you can get their attention.
I signed the petition-gladly. I'm not about to support a Leftist organization for a two dollar discount on a lousy motel room.
I thought there was an "UN-AARP" organization, does anyone know of such?
You're assuming that Oregon won't revise your retirement plan after you retire and take it away from you after the fact. That's the scenario being discussed elsewhere, and it eventually gets around.
Okay, here's the deal with the proposal.
1. It adds no money to Social Security to cover the costs of the boomers.
2. It takes money OUT of Social Security to create private accounts.
3. It costs $2 Trillion for the transition.
4. The so-called 'fix' is to change the way COLAs are calculated to reduce the payout in benefits. However, most lawmakers say this will not pass in Congress.
5. No one has said how the plan can be paid for, which raises the spector that it will be slapped on the federal deficit and clock up interest like the rest of it.
There are multiple ways that less-than-honest people can take your money in the proposed program:
1. Mismanagement costs (you screw up your investments and you lose)
2. Management costs (overhead for professionals to screw up your investments)
3. Congress picking over the plan and stuffing it with pork (probably the most costly)
4. We end up with the same problem we started with - we can't pay for the boomers - and the crisis rolls around again 5 years down the road (likely)
Yes, I agree that some THINKING is required.
Well, it's in the courts now. But even with the changes they want to make, my 'group' was excluded - it was new employees after a certain date. And it all comes down to how the courts interpret whether or not the plan I was hired under amounts to a contract.
But SS is NOT a contract, & it's reasonable to modify it. Particularly when we know the elderly are one of the most prosperous groups in the country right now. My mother's neighbor (age close to 80) was complaining about how 'Bush was planning to take away her SS'. This gal owns land that would probably sell for $1 million to a developer. I don't have much sympathy!!!
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