Thread: Iowa Democrat: Don't trust GOP on Social Security

Iowa Democrat: Don't trust GOP on Social Security
Saturday, July 8, 2006; Posted: 3:50 p.m. EDT (19:50 GMT)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The Republican plan to privatize the Social Security pension program could cause huge debt for decades, a Democratic candidate seeking a House seat in Iowa, a state with a high concentration of elderly residents, argued Saturday.
"If the Republican plan is allowed to pass, future generations both here and across the country will be saddled with decades of debt and no guaranteed retirement security," Bruce Braley said in the Democrats' weekly radio address.
Braley, 48, an attorney from Waterloo, Iowa, faces Republican Mike Whalen in the contest to fill the seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Jim Nussle, who is running for governor. The race is considered one of the more competitive in the country.
Braley said Social Security is under attack, with President Bush and congressional Republicans making privatization a top priority in 2007. He also accused the Bush administration of "plundering the Social Security trust fund while giving billions away to special interests, like big oil." (Watch as candidate questions "rubber-stamp" Congress -- 4:00)
"They are spending the money seniors rely on while making no effort to balance the budget or protect the limited funds we have for retirement security," he said.
According to the 2000 census, Iowa ranks fourth in the nation in percentage of population 65 and older, at 14.9 percent, behind Florida, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Bush had called for a complete overhaul of Social Security, including creation of personal savings accounts and a reduction in future benefits promised to younger workers. But legislation failed to make it to the floor of either the House or Senate.
Braley said the Bush administration and the Republican-led Congress have failed to reform Medicare and the nation's energy policy and should not be trusted with Social Security.
"This is the same team that set out to reform Medicare but instead let lobbyists create a confusing, expensive program that was little more than a payoff to the big pharmaceutical and insurance companies," Braley said of the Medicare prescription drug plan.
Braley said it's time for a change in Washington with a Democratic-led Congress.
"Because after six years of misplaced priorities, George Bush and his rubber-stamp Republican Congress cannot be trusted to protect something as vital as Social Security," he said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/08/ ... index.html

Well, Social Security is a program that far exceeds any constitutional mandate or granted power. The best thing would be to simply abolish it. If we are going to keep the damned thing, though, we need to have a system that provides some sort of positive return. The current system provides a heavily negative return, because those who actually live to collect gain a paltry fraction of a percent on their investment, while many do not live to collect the investment and their families never see a dime.

I saw the math that determined that with the average rate of return on a mutual fund, if a person earned $5/hr., 40 hours/wk. from the age of 18 until retirement age and invested the same percentage as SS in a mutual fund, he would retire with $5 million and an annual income off that account of an average of $400,000/year.

The only thing worse than meddling with Social Security is leaving it as it is.

What is interesting is that Argentina privatized their SS program over 15 years ago, and it worked for them.

I'm not sure if that is our solutioin, but merging it with Mexico's SS program doesn't seem to be the answer.

Get rid of SS altogether. I will invest my own money and certainly do not need the government to take care of me and mine, nor do I want them to.

It will be long gone before I can ever collect anyway.

I'd be glad to take my money that I have paid in to the SS since I was 16 and use it to invest in something more promising like gasoline stocks.. Socialist Security wasn’t meant to be a retirement plan.