So the Congresscritters are hitting the road with their townhall meetings to ensure their constituents are drinking the Social Security Kool-Aid. In Texas, thanks to DeLay, we here in Dallas, have to drive 30+ miles out to Forney Texas to catch Jeb Hensarling shilling for the administration's vision-free plan. Apparently the concept of a need for multiple meetings hasn't occured to the planners. Sense a pattern?
Congressional Town Hall Meeting
Congressman Hensarling
Thursday, February 24, 09:30 AM
Forney Subcourthouse
200 E. Main St.
Forney, TX 75126
Update: Mrs. Monkey will be attending in person, well thought out questions are welcome.
Posted by kerry at February 23, 2005 05:38 AM | TrackBackHere's a few. Probably nothing short & pithy enough, but feel free to use them as a starting point.
- The GAO has estimated that Social Security will have a $3.7 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years. The Bush administration considers this a "crisis" that requires us to adopt their privatization scheme.
Medicare's predicted shortfall is far worse, almost $28 trillion over the same 75-year period . Yet the administration pays little attention to this, and has refused to scale back its Medicare prescription benefit even though its costs are now expected to be twice what supporters originally claimed and despite financially reckless corporate pork aspects of the program such as the requirement that Medicare pay full retail price for medicines instead of leveraging its buying power to obtain bulk discounts.
Why is nothing being done to address the far greater Medicare problem?
- The administration claims that we will own our personal savings account. Is this just empty rhetoric, or will it be an actual asset? If the latter, what implication does the Bush privatization scheme have for the account in case of divorce, bankruptcy, general tax liability, or other cases where assets are subject to seizure or distribution to other parties? And what does ownership imply for other uses of the money (down payment on a house, college tuition, etc.)? How does the notion of "ownership" square with the government dictating what you can do with the money?
- If the intention is to provide better returns on retirement savings than existing Social Security benefits, then aren't there enough such opportunities available to those who can afford them (IRAs, 401Ks, etc.)? Why do we need the Bush privatization scheme on top of those?
- The administration has said that we will be able to make financial decisions over how our account is invested, to obtain higher gains than the existing system offers. This assumes that people are capable of making sound financial decisions. I know it's not "politically correct" to say this, but lots of people are just plain stupid. Don't deny it, we all know they're there; we have to deal with them day in and day out. Social Security was created because most people weren't capable of saving adequately for retirement.
Today, Social Security serves as a safety net for such people--whatever mistakes they may make, whatever misfortunes they suffer, at least Social Security will ensure that they are not left utterly destitute in their old age. What provisions will be made for ensuring that that guarantee will remain if the Bush privatization scheme is adopted?
- Though nobody's actually put a real plan on the table, the proposals I've seen call for retirees to buy an annuity when they retire. Annuities pay out only until the beneficiary dies, which goes against Bush's claim that the account is something that can be passed on to one's heirs. The proposals also call for reducing one's regular Social Security benefit in proportion to one's private account benefit, as much as dollar-for-dollar. So what exactly do the American people get out of the Bush privatization scheme, apart from increased financial risk?
- Supporters of the Bush privatization scheme claim it will cost $2 trillion in startup costs. Given that the administration routinely understates the costs of every program they cram through Congress--tax cuts for the rich, the Medicare prescription benefit...Andrew Natsios, director of USAID, ludicrously claimed on 4/23/03 (eight days before Bush proclaimed "Mission Accomplished") that the reconstruction of Iraq would only cost American taxpayers $1.7 billion--why should anyone believe their figure?
- Again, the GAO deficit figure is $3.7 trillion over the next 75 years. Bush's reckless deficit spending has already added $2 trillion to the national debt, and his current budget plans add another $1 trillion over the next three years. And that's without factoring in the costs of the Iraq war and his Social Security privatization scheme, which he finds politically expedient to exclude from his normal budget requests. A CNN/Money article says that our federal debt will swell to $11 trillion in 2010--roughly twice what it was under Clinton. And all with both Congress and the White House run by the GOP--the "party of fiscal responsibility." And that doesn't include the $2 trillion Bush wants to borrow for his Social Security privatization scheme.
If a $3.7 trillion shortfall over 75 years is a crisis for Social Security, what is $5.5 trillion in new national debt over ten? Does nobody in Congress have the balls to say that having the country be an entire year's gross domestic product in debt is a bad thing?
Above all, note the use of the phrase "Bush privatization scheme." Use it often and loudly.
Posted by: Peter Dubuque at February 23, 2005 03:25 PM