I think this is a good idea. I like the idea of keeping Social Security solvent longer, since I don't see Congress making any headway on "reform" any time soon. And this will get personal accounts in the door, which will help people warm up to the idea.
Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint are calling for legislation to bring an immediate halt to the ongoing political raid on the surplus payroll taxes collected by Social Security. Congress now spends that cash on current programs--from cotton subsidies, to defense, to the Dr. Seuss Museum. Every day that Congress fails to act, another $200 million is spent rather than being saved for future retirement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once called this "thievery," and if corporate America were engaged in this type of accounting fraud Eliot Spitzer would be hauling CEOs to jail.Since this is taking Gore's idea of a "lockbox" and applying it to individual taxpayers, it'll should be palatable to the Dems. They should maybe even embrace it. But they've already come out screaming against it, so it'll be interesting to see if the public buys into their rhetoric, or sees them as hopelessly obstructionist.
Instead of spending this retirement money, the reformers would allow individual workers to divert every surplus Social Security dollar--from now until the extra cash runs out in 2016--into personal retirement accounts.
2 comments:
I thought this sounded ok, but not ideal. But maybe closer to being saleable to the 'sprats.
Then I heard these wing nuts:
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from http://www.newsday.com/business/printedition/ny-bzsoci4315715jun23,0,143979.story?coll=ny-business-print
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) called it "a smaller version of a bad idea. That bad idea is private accounts."
"They can twist themselves into any pretzel shape they want," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "As long as privatization is on the table, there will be no compromise on Social Security."
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Honestly, I have never heard a word out of Schumer's mouth that didn't cause me to want to tap dance on his spleen. So I don't know why I would expect different from one of the masters of obstructionism.
I won't be holding my breath for this one to come in. I can only hope the Democrats start trying to do something.
The Moynihan quote should be a pry bar for them.
Oh, I totally missed what I wanted to say when I started ranting about Schumer.
I continuously find it amazing that the politicians consider the "surplus" from social security as funds to be spent. I find it even more remarkable, that having been told that there is a very good chance that the whole mess will become insolvent in a few decades, that they continue to piss away the funding that they should be saving against that problem.
Imagine if a company did this today with a pension plan. The Feds would have the CEO in prison so fast their heads would spin.
Damn, got all grumpy about some sodding politicians BS.
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