Would we be in a better place if Bush got his way and Social Security was privatized?

Bush's biggest initiative after the 2004 election was an attempt to privatize Social Security. That means your retirement would be based on the stock market......and worth almost nothing right now.

2009-07-05T21:38:05Z

Social security is solvent, and if we drop the cap on high incomes....it will run surpluses as long as can be projected.

Republicans (at least the ones, like Bush, who want to kill it) say it's broke because government borrows against it to pay for other things. But it's not Social Security that is bankrupt, it's the federal budget....anyone who says otherwise is misinformed or trying to misinform.

Remember Al Gore's lock box? Yes, Gore wanted to take the surplus Clinton left and keep it that way....not borrowing against social security. Bush didn't. Bush turned that 300 BILLION DOLLAR SURPLUS into 300 billion dollar DEFICIT in one year....and borrowed away. Then in his second term he tried to kill Social Security outright by privatizing it.

To blame Clinton - the one President since Reagan who balanced the budget - on borrowing against it is ignorant, but that's to be expected.

NC DAN2009-07-05T21:41:12Z

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Only a small portion of your SS would have been invested in the stock market , you would have been doing great for years if this was in effect in 2000. Every time Obama made a speech the stock market dropped , you would have to sell your SS stocks like you had to sell your 401 stocks to keep from losing everything you have until this administration is history .

Exile2009-07-05T21:32:49Z

Bush at least had a working model for his social security plan. A few counties in Texas opted out of Social Security and managed their own funds and their checks were twice the fedral governments and the investments were two or three times the national system.

Anonymous2009-07-05T21:31:38Z

Which would still be better than the alternative. The Social Security system is bankrupt. The Clinton administration looted the reserves, and we've never paid it back. We're trillions short on funding for it now, and it's getting worse every year.

Anonymous2009-07-05T21:38:06Z

Nothing as opposed to what?

You think anybody under 50 is going to be able to count on Social Security to retire? LOL!!!

And before any of the knee jerk reactionary hand jobs get all bent out of shape that is not intended to be a criticism of Obama alone. That train left the station years ago.

?2009-07-05T21:32:37Z

As I recall, Bush's plan was a bit more complex than that. For one, it would have been completely voluntary. For another, it would allow for one to "privatize" only a percentage of their SSI.

But in general, I think it would have been an improvement. Social Security was never intended to be a retirement plan. It was meant to be a *supplement* to a retirement plan.

Social entitlement programs have the unintended (?) consequence of breeding a "needy" class -- those who then fail to provide for themselves because their "good Uncle (Sam)" will take care of them. "Relief" has become "Welfare" and now for some generations, it's the family "business."

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