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RALEIGH, N.C. - President Bush's proposal to allow taxpayers to invest part of their Social Security taxes would have an amplified, negative effect on farm families who depend on the government program in retirement, Rep. Bob Etheridge (news, bio, voting record), D-N.C., said Saturday. "Farm families have tight budgets, and most don't have access to employer retirement accounts such as 401(k) plans. In fact, three out of four farmers fund their own retirement. They depend on Social Security when the crop yield is low or the weather is bad," Etheridge, a member of the House Agriculture Committee and a part-time...

WASHINGTON - Work till you're 69 before getting full Social Security benefits? That's one possibility — for Americans who retire two decades or more into the future — as Republicans on a key Senate committee review suggestions for improving the program's solvency. No decisions have been made yet, and it could be fall before the politically volatile Social Security issue reaches the floor of either the House or Senate, if then. At the same time, an increase in the retirement age is one of the suggestions that Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,...

President Bush spent Tuesday replenishing his party's coffers and, in the face of resistance to his Social Security plan and much of the rest of his second-term agenda, struck an aggressive new tone by accusing Democrats of standing for nothing but obstructionism. "I'm going to continue to call upon the United States Congress, members of both political parties, to stand up, to do what's right for a young generation of Americans coming up, to fix this Social Security system once and for all," Mr. Bush told a gathering of the Future Farmers of America on the campus of Pennsylvania State...

<p>Key Senate Republicans are considering gradually raising the Social Security retirement age as high as 69 over several years as they struggle to jump-start legislation that President Bush has placed atop his second-term agenda, officials said Tuesday.</p> <p>Raising the retirement age is unpopular, according to some surveys.</p>

Americans turning 65 this year can expect to live, on average, until they are 83, four and a half years longer than the typical 65-year-old could expect in 1940. And government actuaries predict that American life spans will just keep growing. This demographic trend - by 2040, the average 65-year-old will live to about 85 - has major financial implications for Social Security and major political implications for the lawmakers now trying to overhaul the system. Policy experts across the political spectrum, who agree on little else, have told Congress in recent weeks that any effort to improve Social Security's...

Meeting in private for the 11th time this year on Social Security, Republican senators on the Finance Committee struggled on Thursday over ways to make the retirement system solvent, and the committee chairman said afterward that he hoped to forge a consensus among senators in his party next week on topics like raising the retirement age and cutting benefits. The chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said he wanted to wrap up work on the issue of solvency before turning to a harder matter - President Bush's proposal to allow workers to divert part of their Social Security...

WASHINGTON - Key Senate Republicans privately reviewed suggestions Thursday for raising the Social Security retirement age while limiting future benefits for upper-wage earners, officials said, as they sought momentum for legislation atop President Bush's second-term domestic agenda. At the same time, the prospects for swift Senate action on the controversial measure appeared to dim during the day, the result of internal GOP disagreement as well as implacable Democratic opposition to Bush's call for personal accounts under Social Security. "I don't look for it until later on in the fall," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. Lott made his comments after he...

Washington -- A majority of likely voters (52-40%) favor proposals to allow younger workers the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in personal accounts, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Cato Institute. Younger voters support the chance to invest by an enormous majority (66-23% among voters under 30). The poll also found that Americans believe that opponents of President Bush's Social Security reform proposals have an obligation to put forward an alternative plan to solve the financial crisis that is about to engulf the current system. By an overwhelming 70-22% margin,...

The rhetoric of class warfare is as old as dirt. Even Pharaoh kept the slaves fighting among themselves to extend their captivity. But there is nothing classy about stirring people’s jealousy and envy, making people feel as if the world owes them something, or bashing people who take risks to create jobs and help drive our economy. It is classless exploitation to appeal to a person’s weakness of understanding instead of their strength of character. Not surprisingly, Democratic Party leaders were quick to attack President Bush’s most recent proposal to help restructure Social Security by labeling it a “benefit cut...

AFP Names Sen. John F. Kerry "Investor of the Week" Urges Lawmaker to Allow All Americans to Build Retirement Nest Eggs With Personal Accounts WASHINGTON -- As the U.S. Senate Finance Committee met today for a hearing about Social Security reform, the free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity named one of the committee's members, Sen. John F. Kerry, its inaugural "Investor of the Week" for his outstanding personal investment record and secure retirement future. The group also urged Sen. Kerry to back legislation creating personal accounts in Social Security, which would allow all Americans to build larger retirement nest eggs...

This calculator is intended to be an educational tool to help citizens better understand public policy issues associated with Social Security......

While AARP is busy bashing President Bush's plan for personal retirement accounts as unsafe, the organization is raking in millions of dollars from its own private stock and bond accounts.

Ever since President Bush first floated the idea of personal retirement accounts as part of Social Security reform, fiscal hawks have been going berserk: "This will only increase future government borrowing when the federal deficit is already sky high!," they say. Well, they're wrong. There is a way to have personal retirement accounts, or PRAs, and actually decrease the government debt. If PRAs of modest size are combined with something called the "progressive indexing" of benefits, the government borrowing needed to finance Social Security would be dramatically reduced. What is progressive indexing and how does it work? http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006627

Social Security has been the most debated domestic issue of George W. Bush’s second term. Baby boomers begin retiring as early as 2008, and the nation’s retirement system faces an income shortfall beginning as early as 2017, according to the Social Security Administration. President Bush has called for personal accounts that would restructure the system to combat this looming problem. Social Security coverage on the five major networks has been overwhelmingly against personal accounts – by a margin of 2 to 1. Four of the five gave more air time to the liberal position than to explaining economic realities.

President Bush is ready to begin talking with Congress and the public about specific steps he supports to ensure the future of Social Security and will announce his ideas during a prime-time news conference Thursday. Bush was also using the formal question-and-answer session with reporters - his first in the evening in over a year - to talk about skyrocketing gas prices. The White House asked television networks to broadcast the news conference, scheduled for 8:30 p.m. EDT in the East Room of the White House. The focus of the president's planned 10- to 12-minute opening statement was to be...

There they were, some 120 Democrats, House and Senate members, at a rally Tuesday to protest President Bush's plan for retirement investment accounts they say will jeopardize the long-term health of Social Security. Emboldened by polls showing that Bush's 60-day campaign for these accounts -- to be created with a small amount of money diverted from Social Security payroll taxes -- may have actually eroded backing for his plan, the Democrats have a sense that they may have prevailed. The Democrats are and have been displaying an iron wall of unity when it comes to opposing retirement investment accounts. Social...

Key Senate Finance Committee Republicans vowed Tuesday to forge ahead without Democrats on President Bush's idea to include private investment accounts in Social Security. Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, outlined a process over the next two to three months that will force the high-powered Republicans on his panel to accept benefit cuts and tax increases necessary to make the giant retirement program permanently solvent, while including the private accounts that Bush and most of his party want but Democrats steadfastly oppose. Grassley admitted that even if he pushed a bill out of his committee on a party-line vote --...

WASHINGTON, April 21 - The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Charles E. Grassley, said Thursday that he would try to produce a Social Security bill with the support of Republicans alone, in an effort to jump-start a legislative effort now stymied by solid Democratic opposition. Mr. Grassley, whose committee will play the lead role on Social Security, acknowledged that it was a risky strategy and that he would need to attract some Democratic support once the bill reached the full Senate, if not sooner. But he said, with some frustration, that he had been unable to get the Democrats on his...

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Discussed on CNBC with Congressman Ryan. This bill is highly rated by the Chief Actuary of Social Security with his opinion shown in the link. This bill empowers workers with the freedom to choose a large personal account option for Social Security, with no benefit cuts or tax increases. Summary of the Bill: · Workers will be able to shift to their personal accounts 10 percentage points of the current 12.4% Social Security payroll tax on the first $10,000 of wages each year, and 5 percentage points on all taxable wages above that. This creates a progressive structure with an...