President Bush explains his social security reform proposal

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I for one don't think that people who are financially stable at retirement age and can support themselves should receive retirement checks.

You don't mind taking their money but you sure mind them getting it back. If they pay into it then they should get it back as well. Our country wasn't founded on socialism and it should be run as a welfare country.

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I disagree because Social Security is intended to keep our seniors from living on the street. not to let them live in luxury while they wait to die.

Well what on Earth did old people do before SS was put into place 60 years ago? I mean there has been old people since the dawn of time and SS wasn't there for them. How did they did it?

I know families helped each other back then that's how. Now with govt being a welfare check we don't have to worry about taking care of our families any more, the govt does it for us.

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We live in a society and everyone has to pay their fair share, and not take more than they deserve.

What you mean is that everyone has to pay but not everyone gets a share. You don't like the fact that people have worked their whole lives to make money and now that they have that money you want take it from them. Why this push to take money from people that they have worked so hard for?

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It's proven that propping up the wealthy and making them wealthier doesn't work for a society. On the other hand, socialism actually does work and everybody gets their fair share.

It has also been proven that taking the money from people and dispersing it to everyone else doesn't work either. Look over the lessons learned by the Russians, they tried that and it failed.

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We give welfare to corporations all the time and the richies don't complain about that, because it's more money in their pockets.

Could it be because the richies actually do something for society and the poor don't?

Media coverage of president's press conference largely ignored Bush's trust fund contradiction
Most major televised media outlets failed to note that President Bush, in his one-hour press conference on April 28, made two flatly contradictory statements about the viability of U.S. treasury bonds, in which the Social Security trust fund is invested. Repeating a claim made in his recent travels throughout the country in support of Social Security privatization, Bush said that the treasury bonds owned by the trust fund represent worthless IOUs from the U.S. government. But he later touted those same bonds for holders of his proposed private accounts looking for a safe investment that would be "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government." No reporter challenged Bush on the contradiction during the press conference, and only George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's This Week, noted it in the post-conference analysis.

And CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer did the rest of TV news media one better -- specifically noting that Bush mentioned treasury bonds as a safe investment, while failing to note that he has repeatedly disparaged treasury bonds when talking about the trust fund and did so again last night. Schieffer later commended Bush's performance in the press conference, saying "I think it's fair to say he did not step on his own story."

The Social Security trust fund is invested entirely in treasury bonds that, according to law, have been purchased with surplus payroll tax revenues. During the press conference, Bush dismissed the Social Security trust fund as little more than "file cabinets full of IOUs." Earlier in the press conference, however, Bush advocated an option that would allow wary private account holders to invest solely in those same treasury bonds, because they "are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government." Bush has used the "file cabinet" rhetoric in the past, such as at an April 15 town hall meeting in Ohio and when he visited the Bureau of Public Debt in West Virginia on April 5. His argument that the Social Security trust fund is a myth has been echoed by various conservatives in the media (here, here, and here).

A Media Matters for America analysis of the major cable and broadcast network coverage following the press conference revealed that Stephanopoulos was the sole commentator to note the president's contradictory trust fund rhetoric.

About seven minutes into ABC's press conference analysis, Stephanopoulos said:

STEPHANOPOULOS: He [Bush] got caught in a contradiction here. When he was talking about the treasury bonds and the overall Social Security system, he called them a file cabinet of IOUs. Yet, when they're in the individual accounts, they're backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

From Schieffer's analysis of the president's press conference:

SCHIEFFER: He said at one point in the news conference that he certainly believes any reform package ought to include the idea of creating personal savings accounts. He said one option that those who choose the personal savings account might want is to invest only in treasury bills. He said that would ensure that it would be a safe investment for them. I believe that's the first time he's said that.

[...]

But the president came on television tonight because he wanted to talk about Social Security, and I think it's fair to say he did not step on his own story. I think there was no bigger headline than what he said about urging these reforms in Social Security tonight.

You don't mind taking their money but you sure mind them getting it back. If they pay into it then they should get it back as well. Our country wasn't founded on socialism and it should be run as a welfare country.

Well what on Earth did old people do before SS was put into place 60 years ago? I mean there has been old people since the dawn of time and SS wasn't there for them. How did they did it?

Well what on Earth did old people do before SS was put into place 60 years ago? I mean there has been old people since the dawn of time and SS wasn't there for them. How did they did it?

I know familes helped each other back then that's how. Now with govt being a wellfare check we don't have to worry about taking care of our familes any more, the govt does it for us.

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 9, 2005
Hell hath no fury like a scammer foiled. The card shark caught marking the deck, the auto dealer caught resetting a used car's odometer, is rarely contrite. On the contrary, they're usually angry, and they lash out at their intended marks, crying hypocrisy.


And so it is with those who would privatize Social Security. They didn't get away with scare tactics, or claims to offer something for nothing. Now they're accusing their opponents of coddling the rich and not caring about the poor.

Well, why not? It's no more outrageous than other arguments they've tried. Remember the claim that Social Security is bad for black people?

Before I take on this final insult to our intelligence, let me deal with a fundamental misconception: the idea that President Bush's plan would somehow protect future Social Security benefits.

If the plan really would do that, it would be worth discussing. It's possible - not certain, but possible - that 40 or 50 years from now Social Security won't have enough money coming in to pay full benefits. (If the economy grows as fast over the next 50 years as it did over the past half-century, Social Security will do just fine.) So there's a case for making small sacrifices now to avoid bigger sacrifices later.

But Mr. Bush isn't calling for small sacrifices now. Instead, he's calling for zero sacrifice now, but big benefit cuts decades from now - which is exactly what he says will happen if we do nothing. Let me repeat that: to avert the danger of future cuts in benefits, Mr. Bush wants us to commit now to, um, future cuts in benefits.

This accomplishes nothing, except, possibly, to ensure that benefit cuts take place even if they aren't necessary.

Now, about the image of Mr. Bush as friend to the poor: keep your eye on the changing definitions of "middle income" and "wealthy."

In last fall's debates, Mr. Bush asserted that "most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans." Since most of the cuts went to the top 10 percent of the population and more than a third went to people making more than $200,000 a year, Mr. Bush's definition of middle income apparently reaches pretty high.

But defenders of Mr. Bush's Social Security plan now portray benefit cuts for anyone making more than $20,000 a year, cuts that will have their biggest percentage impact on the retirement income of people making about $60,000 a year, as cuts for the wealthy.

These are people who denounced you as a class warrior if you wanted to tax Paris Hilton's inheritance. Now they say that they're brave populists, because they want to cut the income of retired office managers.

Let's consider the Bush tax cuts and the Bush benefit cuts as a package. Who gains? Who loses?

Suppose you're a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year. You probably didn't get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that he won't cut your Social Security benefits.

Suppose you're earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per year. Not a very good deal.

Suppose, finally, that you're making $1 million a year. You received a tax cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner!

I'm not being unfair. In fact, I've weighted the scales heavily in Mr. Bush's favor, because the tax cuts will cost much more than the benefit cuts would save. Repealing Mr. Bush's tax cuts would yield enough revenue to call off his proposed benefit cuts, and still leave $8 trillion in change.

The point is that the privatizers consider four years of policies that relentlessly favored the wealthy a fait accompli, not subject to reconsideration. Now that tax cuts have busted the budget, they want us to accept large cuts in Social Security benefits as inevitable. But they demand that we praise Mr. Bush's sense of social justice, because he proposes bigger benefit cuts for the middle class than for the poor.

Sorry, but no. Mr. Bush likes to play dress-up, but his Robin Hood costume just doesn't fit.