Posted by Prez on February 05, 2005 at 18:22:28 (PST):
You're going to hear a lot of claims about President Bush's blue
print to privatizing Social Security. Here's the truth.
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.
* Privatizing Social Security is not really voluntary. You'll
get the benefit cuts even if you don't want a privatized Social
Security account.
* 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.
* Retirees can't pass privatized Social Security account money
on to your heirs. The accounts will be converted to annual
payments.
* 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.
Please share these facts with people you know by forwarding this
message to your friends, families and working people.