read this!

[winterbadger]

excellent post by mazzie on Social Security and why it needs to be fixed, not broken further as the administration wants to do

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mazzie/153034.html

Comments

[sujata.livejournal.com]

A good basic overview, indeed.

An important point I wish your friend had made, though, is that Social Security wouldn't even need much tweaking. The shortfall for the next 75 years (the period for which its administrators must plan) is less than 1% of the United States' GDP. Such a minor shortfall could easily be corrected by doing something like raising the retirement age by 3 years. Not a bad idea anyway, since life expectancy will only continue increasing as medical science improves.

Or, for that matter, who says that Social Security must always and only be funded via the (regressive) payroll tax? If taxation on corporations and the top 5% of the wealthy were even partially restored, the shortfall could be corrected -- and then some.

But what amazes me most is that people don't realize the one obvious motive the Bushies have for wanting to privatize Social Security, and a possible unobvious and downright evil ulterior motive they may have as well. Obvious motive: privatizing Social Security would toss a great big bone to the dogs of Wall Street (a heavily Republican constituency). Unobvious possible motive: by destroying the Democrats' most successful social program ever, with the result that old age and poverty would become synonymous again for all but the wealthiest Americans, the Republican party could "prove" that government does nothing to improve the lives of citizens and thereby destroy the Democrats' argument for their raison d'etre. (Not to mention the icing on the cake, breaking the spirit of the poor and middle class because they'd have no retirement to look forward to, thus keeping the proletariat in their rightful inferior place....)

(Hey, you already knew I'm a socialist and thoroughly cynical. *g*)