You're going to hear a lot of claims about President Bush's blueprint to privatizing Social Security in his State of the Union address. Here's the truth.
You won't hear the word "privatization" coming from President Bush--because his pollsters and spin doctors know America's voters oppose privatizing Social Security. He'll call it "personalizing" Social Security. No matter what word spin he uses, the reality is this: Privatizing Social Security will cut benefits, add $2 trillion to the federal deficit in just the first 10 years, push seniors into poverty and replace guaranteed retirement income with "personalized" risk.
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Privatizing Social Security will not mean more money for you. Privatization will cut benefits by 30 percent even for workers who don't choose to have private accounts. That adds up to $152,000 lost by the average worker who lives 20 years beyond retirement. And if you do choose a private account, the government will take back 50 cents for every $1 in your account--on top of the 30 percent benefit cut.
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Privatizing Social Security is not really voluntary. You'll get the benefit cuts even if you don't want a privatized Social Security account.
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You won't be in charge of your privatized Social Security account. Politicians will hand-pick Wall Street firms to control the investment accounts--paving the way to corruption and Enron-ization of Social Security.
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Retirees can't pass privatized Social Security account money on to your heirs. The accounts will be converted to annual payments.
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We have time to strengthen Social Security the right way--not by slashing benefits. Social Security can pay full benefits until 2042 even with no changes at all. We should strengthen Social Security with commonsense approaches--like requiring Congress to pay back money it has borrowed from Social Security or rolling back the most egregious tax breaks for the very wealthy.
You won't hear the word "privatization" coming from President Bush--because his pollsters and spin doctors know America's voters oppose privatizing Social Security. He'll call it "personalizing" Social Security. No matter what word spin he uses, the reality is this: Privatizing Social Security will cut benefits, add $2 trillion to the federal deficit in just the first 10 years, push seniors into poverty and replace guaranteed retirement income with "personalized" risk.
Take action to protect Social Security by signing the petition: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/ProtectSocialSecurity
Please share these facts with people you know by forwarding this message to your friends, families and co-workers.
Thanks for all you do for working families.
In solidarity,
Working Families e-Activist Network
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4 Million Seniors, One Voice: No Privatization
"The State of the Union address has made it clear that the President simply won't give up on a bad idea. Once again, he has blurred the lines between addressing Social Security's solvency and his plan to privatize our nation's most successful family insurance and retirement program." Barbara B. Kennelly, President and CEO of The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
The President is creating a national distraction, using details about private accounts to divert attention from the huge benefit cuts and the multi-trillion-dollar costs of privatizing Social Security.
The President gives glimpses of how he envisions his private accounts working without answering two critical questions his proposal raises: how deep will the benefit cuts be, and where will the money to privatize come from? Until these issues are addressed, the design of the private accounts is simple window dressing.
Young people are the primary targets of the Administration's full-court public relations push. Yet they have the most to lose from private accounts because the trillions of dollars of additional borrowing needed to pay for the accounts will be their burden for generations.
If the President truly wants to protect Social Security for both today's retirees and tomorrow's workers, he should eliminate his privatization plans and work instead with Congress to ensure all Americans receive the guaranteed benefits they have earned and paid for throughout their working lives.
Privatization is not a plan to save Social Security; it is a plan to dismantle Social Security, and no amount of tinkering with the details can change that fundamental flaw.
--The National Committee, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization acts in the interests of its membership through advocacy, education, services, grassroots efforts and the leadership of the Board of Directors and professional staff. The work of the National Committee is directed toward developing better-informed citizens and voters.
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