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Guest Opinion
Bush Social Security Proposal Is a Rip-off of Baby
Boomers
 By
Allen W. Smith, Ph.D.
Baby boomers beware! You have contributed more to Social Security than
any other generation, but there are those who would rip you off. You
have gone that extra mile and prepaid the cost of your own
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Editor's Note |
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No doubt much of what we read from Allen
Smith is aimed at drawing attention to his books.
Yet, he has been crusading for economic education and sound
government fiscal policy for nearly three decades and has
appeared on CNBC, CNNfn, and more than 100 radio talk shows to
discuss Social Security. With a Ph.D. degree in economics from
Indiana University, he is Professor of Economics Emeritus,
Eastern Illinois University. He has written several books,
including "The Looting of Social Security: How the Government is
Draining America's Retirement Account," (Carroll & Graf, 2004)
and "The Alleged Budget Surplus, Social Security, and Voodoo
Economics." His Website is
http://www.lootingsocialsecurity.com/ |
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More Opinions on Social Security |
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Is the Bush Social Security program just another
attempt at clever fraud?
 By
Jewel Littenberg
Senior Advocate, TV Talk Show Host
of "Issues, Answers and More... With Jewel" T.E.N., The Education
Network, Palm Beach, Florida.
Jan. 12, 2005 - The real battlefield concerning
the privatization of Social Security is the minds of the American
people. More...
1/12/05*
A Warning for Social Security Reformers
By Bernard Wasow, senior fellow and
economist at The Century Foundation
Nov. 17, 2004 - While the administration is
preparing its drive to replace part of Social Security with private
investment accounts, an obscure government agency is planning to go to
Congress to ask for a bail- out. The Pension Benefit Guarantee
Corporation (PBGC), which guarantees private pension plans, just
announced that its net liabilities are double earlier estimates, more
than $23 billion.
More... 11/17/04*
Social Security Investment Accounts Would Be
Dangerous For Seniors
By David J. Roberts,
Associate Professor of Accountancy, DePaul University
Nov. 13, 2004 - Proponents of so-called personal
accounts (to use the more politically marketable terminology for what is
really partial privatization) typically argue that such accounts are
needed to save Social Security. But partial privatization would not
likely "save" Social Security, and would probably cause serious harm to
seniors and long-time participants in the current system.
More...
11/13/04*
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retirement in addition to paying the cost of the generation that has
preceded you, but you are being used as scapegoats for the problems
facing Social Security. You may not have liked those extra taxes, but
you paid them and expected your government to keep up its end of the
bargain and pay your full benefits.
You probably had full confidence in your government's commitment to you
until that fateful day of February 25, 2004 when Federal Reserve
Chairman, Alan Greenspan, sent shock waves throughout the nation with
his first call for Social Security benefit cuts. This is the same Alan
Greenspan who headed the 1982 presidential commission on Social Security
to fix the baby boomer problem. He and his fellow commissioners foresaw
at that time the potential problem that would exist when the baby
boomers began to retire in about 2010, so they urged Congress to enact
their recommended solution to the problem. Congress did so in 1983.
The solution was quite simple. TAX, TAX, TAX THOSE BABY BOOMERS UP
FRONT! Hit them with a double whammy by making them pay enough taxes to
prepay the cost of their own retirement in addition to paying for the
retirement of the preceding generation.
The baby boomers did all that was asked of them. Their extra tax dollars
have generated approximately $1.5 trillion in Social Security surpluses
since 1983, and continue to generate surpluses of more than $400 million
each and every day. By the time they retire, the baby boomers will have
paid for their own retirement in addition to having paid for the
retirement of the previous generation. The trust fund should contain a
large enough reserve to pay full benefits until 2042 when the youngest
of the baby boomers will be 78 years old.
So why is President Bush now making scapegoats out of the baby boomers
and telling the public that the boomers are the reason the system needs
reform? Why is the president quoting worker-to-retiree ratios when that
calculation was done back in 1983, at the time taxes were raised to take
care of the worker-retiree imbalance that would occur with the
retirement of the baby boomers?
He is doing so because the government has been "borrowing" and spending
(embezzling) all those baby boomer surplus tax dollars for the past two
decades. Although both Bush and Gore promised to end the practice during
the 2000 presidential campaign, and Bush repeated that pledge in his
first State of the Union address, he "borrowed" and spent $509 billion
of the baby boomers' retirement contributions in violation of both
federal law and his pledge to the American people. Even as he publicly
blames the baby boomers for the Social Security problems, Bush continues
to misappropriate more than $400 million of their retirement money each
and every day.
Every dollar of the Social Security surplus has become the victim of
what Senator Harry Reid first referred to as "embezzlement" and
"thievery" in a Senate speech on October 9, 1990. The money has been
taken from the trust fund and replaced with worthless IOUs that Senator
Fritz Hollings has referred to as "a 21st century version of Confederate
banknotes."
Because of the looting of the trust fund, when Social Security begins to
run annual deficits in 2018, it will be necessary to cut benefits or
raise taxes in order to generate the necessary revenue to repay the
government's huge debt to Social Security. Most Americans are not yet
aware of this "embezzlement" of Social Security funds, and Bush and
Greenspan would like to keep it that way.
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