Social Security Privatization - Not gone - assuredly not forgotten
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Social
Security Privatization
Not gone – assuredly not forgotten
by Mac Overmyer
MEDINA – Hurricane Katrina has pushed President Bush’s plan to privatize social security into the shadows, which may be where the Republican administration wants it.
“Be alert,” Congressman Ted Strickland (D- 6th Ohio) told a concerned audience of more than 150 in the auditorium of the Medina County Administration Building on a rainy Tuesday at the close of last month.
“My prediction is that if there is a social security vote, it will probably come at midnight. We need to be vigilant. This administration brings huge issues to the floor in the middle of the night,” Strickland told the audience. The preferred night for Republicans to call major legislation to a vote is Friday night because weekend news coverage of congressional actions is seldom comprehensive and soon forgotten explained Strickland.
The best thing you can do to stop proposals like social security privatization is to express your feelings clearly to our two senators ( Mike DeWine and George Voinovich) said the congressman. When possible, corner them. Meet them face to face he said.
“Hold them accountable. The average citizen sometimes underestimates the influence he or she has,” said Strickland.
He reminded the appreciative audience of the campaign debates between the president and Al Gore in which both men promised to put social security funds in a “lock box.”
“We should demand that the president keep his promise and pay back with interest the money he has already taken,” said Strickland. The remarks were greeted with hearty applause. He emphasized that he and fellow Democrats in Washington considered privatization to be an issue unworthy of debate, one that should not even be brought to the floor.
“The bottom line is that there should be no privatization. There are lots of other solutions. We are not going to debate privatization of the system,” he said.
Several in the audience asked about or proposed solutions to the social security issue. Strickland said that modest changes would be sufficient to support the system well into the second half of this century.
“No drastic actions are necessary,” he said. “We could be thinking about increasing the cap. At some point in time it may be necessary to consider raising the contribution amount. But there should be no benefit cuts and no raising of the retirement age.”
The congressman spent the early part of the evening explaining that the administration was crying wolf when it spoke of a crisis in social security.
“We have sufficient resources to pay benefits for approximately 50 years,” he said. He explained that the program will not even begin to draw from the social security trust fund until 2018 and that those funds are sufficient to provide all recipients with full benefits for at least 50 years if the program is left untouched. After that it would still be capable of proving 80% of benefits.
He reminded the audience that social security was more than a retirement benefit. It provides two-thirds of all senior citizens with a majority of their income. Twelve million seniors would be living in poverty were it not for social security. Fifteen million Americans get disability or survivor benefits. All told, 48 million get benefits. This amounts to one in four American households or 90% of all American senior citizens, less than half of whom get pensions from former employers.
One of the aspects of privatization that seldom sees light is the cost of transferring all or a portion of the program to private accounts. The action is expected to increase the federal debt by $10 trillion during the next 25 years according to social security trust fund trustees. Much, if not all of this will have to be borrowed and much, if not all will be borrowed from foreign investors. The congressman implied that he did not much like being in debt to China. The lowest estimate for the borrowing is $2 trillion. On the other hand, privatization will funnel about $950 billion to Wall Street brokers to provide substantial benefits to at least one segment of the populace.
The congressman announced his intentions to run for governor of Ohio in May of this year. The five-term congressman represents Ohio’s 6th congressional district, which runs 300 miles along the muddy western banks of the Ohio river from Mahoning County in the north to Lawrence County in the south.