Where was Hillary When Bush Wanted This
by Big Dog on Mar 25, 2008 at 15:47 Political
In an interview in Pittsburgh Hillary was asked about Social Security and here is what she said:
On Social Security:
“We need to have a bipartisan commission much like President Reagan and Tip O’Neill had in the ’80s where they worked together, and we have lived off of those efforts. But we need to do something now. One of the caveats that I would have is that people that are presently on Social Security or about to go on Social Security not be affected.”
George bush has said that Social Security is broken and that it needed to be fixed. He wanted to privatize it or at least part of it. His plan would not affect those already on SS or those about to go on SS. It would have allowed younger people to put away THEIR money instead of giving it to the government so it can be spent on everything but SS.
Hillary stated in the past that SS was on the way to being solvent until 2055 (not accurate) until Bush squandered that. Bush did not spend the SS money. Congress has been dipping into the money forcibly removed from workers for years. SS has been declining because of the growing number of people drawing it and the declining number of people paying in and because the members of Congress cannot keep their grubby little hands out of the till.
Bill Clinton wanted to privatize SS because he knew that it was in bad shape. Congress (all parties) cannot let this happen because they lose the cash cow. Most of them will be dead before the IOUs are ever paid back (as if they ever will be). Hillary wants to fix SS because it is always a problem and in bad shape when republicans run the place and it always needs Democrats to fix it. Hillary kind of suggests that the fix (privatization) would be OK if people on it or about to be were not affected.
If we had done this when Bill Clinton wanted to or when Bush wanted to then there would be a lot of people saving and earning more money for retirement and we would not be talking about running out of money. SS could be invested so that say 50% is invested for the worker and the other 50% pays for the benefits already being dispersed. As recipients under the old system die off the amount workers are allowed to invest would increase until it hit 100%. This would allow workers to start investing for themselves and eventually lead to them investing 100% of the money in their own accounts that no member of Congress could EVER touch.
The money would belong to the worker for retirement and could be passed on as part of the estate. No matter what liberal groups say the end result would be retirees with quite a bit of money. They would live better and not depend on the government to dole out a measly portion of money each month. people would not be tied to a political party for fear that something bad would happen to the money. people would actually be responsible for their own retirement.
The rate of return, even in down markets, would be better than the less than 1% the government gets and the maintenance costs would be less than what it costs to run the boondoggle that is SS today. I know that I have been working for 37 years and I have made more from my investments than i have accumulated in SS. Even a bad market outperforms the government.
Hillary is playing coy because she did not come out and say that privatization was best but she, as well as all members, know SS is in serious trouble and taking more money from higher wage earners to give it to retirees is not the solution to the problem. They just have trouble letting go of a cash supply that they do not have to account for and that they can tap into when they need money.
Our government is not good with money and we should never trust them with any. We are getting rebate checks (well i won’t but non taxpayers will). The government spent $43 million to send letters telling us about the program. That was a judicious use of our money…
Maybe Hillary can take credit for Bill’s idea about privatizing SS. Hell, what’s another lie? And did she invoke Reagan’s name? Let’s see if she catches hell like Obama did.
Tags: bush plan, Hillary, privatize, reagan, social security