Social Security is Broken: Don't Let Politicians Fool You

[Aristotle]

Ouch. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is slaughtered by his own words and actions on this issue:

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/expor...42605/rnc.html

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has resurrected a bill Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sponsored when he was in the House more than 20 years ago that would have kept members of Congress out of the Social Security program.

RNC researchers contend that the 1983 bill belies Reid’s repeated claim that Social Security is the “most successful program in the history of the world.”

...

In a statement scheduled for release today, the RNC blasts Reid for the 1983 bill. He sponsored it a few months after Congress passed legislation that required all members and other federal employees to join Social Security. Previously, federal employees, including lawmakers, participated in a generous defined-benefit pension program that exempted them from Social Security taxes.

...

“Senator Reid has asserted that Social Security is the ‘most successful program in the history of the world,’ yet he wrote legislation allowing himself and other members of Congress to stay out of Social Security,” said Brian Jones, the RNC’s communications director.

Reid’s bill would have kept all federal employees hired on or after Jan. 1, 1984, such as the president, elected officials, political appointees and judges, from participating in Social Security, according to a Republican summary of the bill, H.R. 3589, introduced in July 1983.

...

Jim Manley, Reid’s communications director, said he was not familiar with his boss’s 1983 bill, probably because it was introduced more than two decades ago. But Democrats have not hesitated to use statements dating from even further in the past as political ammunition against Bush.

In an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last month, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) used a Bush quote first reported 27 years ago by the Midland, Texas, Reporter-Telegram.

“This is a man, President Bush, who said in 1978 that Social Security would go bust in 1988 unless the system was privatized,” she said. “He was wrong then. This is the president whose White House said we’ve been waiting for this opportunity to change Social Security.”

During an appearance on CNBC last month, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) cited the same reference: “The president indicated in 1978 when he was running for Congress that he wanted to privatize not partially Social Security but all of Social Security.”

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They also have accused him of contradictions, in one case contrasting Reid’s claim that “there is no more positive agenda than saving Social Security” to one made two days later, when he said, “The so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place: the minds of Republicans.”

Wow. This is just more proof that this should NOT be a political issue. Everyone knows deep in their hearts and minds that SSI as it currently exists is a failure.

Protecting 4-5% by putting it in a private account that the government cannot steal is an absolute necessity.

[Savaric]

Well you explained a lot more than I previously knew about the ss problem Ari. First this is what I believed prior to reading your post:

I firmly believed that S.S. is going to collapse. I did listen to to Bush and although I hate him I had no problems understanding the situation. The baby boomers are reaching retirement and their will not be enough people to pay into the system. Easy math for me. I also knew Bush's proposed plan was something that the politicians were already using; after that I knew it was probably a good idea (they look out for themselves and each other, its gotta be good).

I didn't know about the 1.7 trillion that has been raped and the massive propaganda surrounding this issue. I know people have been very mistrusting of Bush's new plan, but it really was one thing I was agreeing with. I think a lot of people are just stupid and buy into it, thinking their benefits are going to be taken away from them.

This is the problem in my opinion, too few people are active in politics. I think its apathy as well. But if everyone was like Ari or you others this wouldn't be a situation like it is. It's not good at all. I am personally not a fan of the government. It's not working in the interests of the people imo.

But because so many things on the political scene enrage me I have adopted a new philosophy of looking out for myself and my future. I wont count on uncle sam for anything and will expect things to get uglier.

Also, people freak about change. The bigger the change the more the resistance. So its probably not taking much to blind people about the right choice here.