The Senior Vote and Privatizing Social Security
Cafferty sums it up.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN00rFIn8ig[/youtube]
If there’s any issue guaranteed to make Seniors sit up and take notice it’s Social Security. How will the McCain camp spin its way out of this one? Answer: They can’t.
Troll Warning: This isn’t a post on the merits of social security. It’s a post on McCain’s support for privatizing an institution that most seniors rely upon and how it will affect the election. Got it?
Tags: 2008 Presidential, John McCain
With the government already buying F and F and rumors of more buyouts rather than bailouts, I think linking these outstanding loans to social security is the next logical pitch.
At first glance this may not be a bad idea. It’s a socialist’s wet dream. The Social Security Administration takes on the duty of mortgage broker offering 30 year fixed rates at 5.5%. All interest goes back into the fund split between the current SS obligations and new loans.
It could work.
Your post is terribly misguided. No one proposed privatizing social security, no one.
The option was proposed to allow voluntary personal accounts, remember the operative word is voluntary not mandatory.
The rate of return on Social Security is .9% when every other investment tool around including pass book savings accounts gets more of a return.
I lost my pension three years ago and I would like to have the option to invest my social security money where I wan to do so.
Mike it’s just that type of thinking that caused you to lose to Bill Lee who won in-spite of wanting to give driver licenses to illegal aliens
every other investment tool around including pass book savings accounts gets more of a return.
Check the headlines, Mike….
I have an sure fire Albanian ponzi scheme that Protack might be interested in. Call me!
USA #1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike the reason you lost your pension is because the Repuk’s deregulated the air lines. But you keep supporting them why is it your against Gay marriage?????
Social security is not an investment plan – it is an annuity plan. Repubs like Mike Pee don’t know the difference.
The trillion dollars that are being spent today by the socialist war mongering repubs to bail out Wall Street could have help make SS solvent for decades.
Repubs = welfare for the rich.
I don’t think your troll repellant works very well. And to Mike P., there are no rules preventing you from investing money for retirement and getting a good return. There are many tax-deferred investment vehicles already, like IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401ks and 403cs (I think for self-employed). Social Security is one’s guaranteed pension, I don’t understand why people want to give up a guaranteed pension. And don’t say that putting money into a tax-deferred investments will lower your pay, depending on how much you put in you will get the same pay because you won’t pay tax on that income. Countries that have privatized pensions have shown that most people, except the rich, have suffered from it (England, Argentina).
John McCain expressed support for SS privatization just 3 months ago. I don’t think he’s running on it – but it is part of how the Republicans have failed. It’s tying our current crisis with Republicans and conservatism. We have the right to know what John McCain believes in this election.
Thanks, UI. That’s my point. McCain = privatizing social security. I’m thinkin’ that ain’t gonna play well with the Senior vote.
BushCo proposed privatizing Social Security when he was high on his mandate after 2004 and John McCain certainly did support that. McCain ran on privatization back on 2000 and as recently as this spring noted his preference for privatization BushCo-style. It is only recently that he has lost that bit of religion — and Few folks here are trusting in that bit of flip-floppery.
From McCain’s website:
“John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts – but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. ”
Sounds to me like privatization + benefit cuts.
“The option was proposed to allow voluntary personal accounts, remember the operative word is voluntary not mandatory.
”
I’m with Mike, this is what I’d like to see happen.
My grandfather is from Chile and they have a system very similar to this. It works quite well.
“Chile allowed every worker to choose whether to stay in the state-run, pay-as-you-go social security system or to put the whole payroll tax into an individual retirement account. ”
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5981
Does anyone know if Dave Burris has yet admitted that it is now blatantly, in your face, obvious everything he ever believed about conservative economics has been conclusivly proven to be wrong?
Hmmm – You’re kidding right? or do you really consider this mortgage mess an indictment of free-market capitalism?
Reporting on the Chilean “miracle” Social Security reform:
“Most people perceive the costs of pensions and the pensions themselves as unfair,” said Patricio Navia, a political science professor at New York University and at Diego Portales University here. “Many of those who started work when the system was first adopted are realizing that they have not been able to contribute enough to get a significant pension,” … they resent “overhead costs that are so high” and that have led to record profits for the pension funds that manage contributions automatically deducted from workers’ paychecks. …”
Read the whole thing — it is very informative.
do you really consider this mortgage mess an indictment of free-market capitalism?
Not an indictment, but it certainly shows where the boundaries are where benefit ends and harm begins.
I see it as an indictment of deregulation.
Free market capitalism? You’re joking, right? How about Free RISK capitalism. Screw up and the government bails you out. The ultimate welfare queens.
Thanks, cassandra. It was Chile I was thinking of and not Argentina. Yes, I’ve read that privatization hasn’t worked very well where it’s been tried. I also think there is a part of Texas that tried it for municipal employees. The same thing happened – most didn’t put enough away and overhead costs ate most of the profits.
Mike the Racist:
I suggest you move to Chile.
MIKE W KICKS HMMs? ASSSSSS!!!!
CUT TAXES for rich people and corporations. Take down any and all the barriers to corporate greed. PUMP UP corporate welfare. Remove accountability for bad decision making.
HOW DO WE KNOW YET IF IT WORKS? HMMMM?
GIVE THE FREE MARKET A CHANCE YOU COMMIE PINKO PIG FUCKER!!!
MIKE W RULZ!!!!!!
USA #1!!!!!!
“Screw up and the government bails you out”
And they shouldn’t Pandora. I’m no more a fan of these bailouts than you are. Corporate welfare like this breeds the same kind of dependence and irresponsibility that welfare for the poor does.
Of course it’s not like we haven’t done it before. We’ve been propping up GM even though they lose money on every car they make because they can’t make a competitive product. The problem of course is that it’s politically disadvantagous to let bad companies fail rather than keep helping them out, particularly in an election year.
Feces – Why not give socialism a chance? We all know how well that’s worked throughout history and how it works harmoniously with protecting individual rights & liberties….
GO MIKE W!!!!
GOP ECONOMICS KICKS ASS!!!! Don’t listen to the left wing media!!! BAIL BABY BAIL!!!
My retirement account is underwtitten BY SMITH & WESSON BIOTCHES!!!!
You are sad DV – Totally incapable of having an intelligent discussion.
Nowhere did I say the economy was doing great, or any of the other crap you spewed in your above comment. Of course you know that, you just like posting comments that make you look like an idiot.
Mike, do you know for a fact that Monkey is DV? I don’t.
Hmmm…… DV has a penchant for constantly changing names, and they’re usually stupid long-winded names.
Based on the writing style, the terrible grammar and spelling, the capitalization, and the generally piss poor intellectual level of the comments I’d be amazed if this weren’t DV.
Mike the Racist:
Leave. Go to Chile.
Nope, I’d rather live here, as would my grandfather.
He has a home in Chile, yet chooses to live in this great country.
Anon – Move to Europe where they love uber-liberal Obama fanatics. Just think, you’ll even get to be patriotic in your new nation by paying more taxes!
The Republicans did not deregulate the airline industry. Jimmy Carter and Mr. Kahn did.
The rate of return on SS is .9% any government backed securtity returns more than that small amount.
I do invest 13% of my income but why can’t I use part of my SS taxes to do the same. I am willing to reduce my SS payments by the same amount? Remember, this is voluntary not mandatory.
Anyone relying on SS is simply delusional and this program is bankrupt as is Medicare.
Social Security is not bankrupt.
Social Security is healthier than Lehman Brothers.
I do invest 13% of my income bit why can’t I use part of my SS taxes to do the same.
Yeah, why can’t I use part of my taxes that are being spent on the military and invest them in my “Personal Defense Fund?”
And why can’t I use taxes I am paying for schools and use them for my own kid’s priva-
Oh wait, that one isn’t a joke, that is an actual Republican proposal.
Theres a huge difference that you folks will ignore.
Ensuring “cushy retirement” isn’t a legitimate function of government, at least not American government. That’s the responsibility of the individual.
Funding some form of educational system and national defense are absolutely legitimate functions of government (at least as far as our founders were concerned.)
Mike Protack you are terribly Misguided here
“Your post is terribly misguided. No one proposed privatizing social security, no one.”
John McCain Did!!!
“The rate of return on Social Security is .9% when every other investment tool around including pass book savings accounts gets more of a return”
Obviously you have not had a Passbook savings account which alot of banks have eliminated
At some points during the Bush Watch they were paying as low as .25% at the venerable Wilmington Trust Bank
“I lost my pension three years ago and I would like to have the option to invest my social security money where I wan to do so.”
You did not lose your Pension The Company you work for did it for you because of there is no nor was there a Federal Policy of keepuing Penaions Funded enough tho pay their obligations in other words the Reirement Checks Instead the Big Corporation were allowed by the Federal Government to invest the money in the Corporation where it was for ever lost because the Pensions never saw a retiurn. By the time the Feds stepped in with rules to Prevent this and make the big Companies pay up this money it was too late and rather than pay their debt too their retirees and employees companies killed the Pension.
Social Security is a garanteed benefit? It’s that only if its still solvent in, oh let’s say, about 2017. At which time there will likely be more retirees then workers paying into the system….nothing in life is certain except death and taxes…..and that goes for the social security system that our congressional leaders, on both sides, have been robbing for years.