Bush May Destroy Social Security, Not Fix It:

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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_berry&sid=aXFUrNBN46wk

John M. Berry, Bloomberg

May 9 (Bloomberg) -- When the House Ways and Means Committee reopens hearings on the future of Social Security this week, two ideas members should bury are those offered by President George W. Bush.

The sweeping changes Bush has proposed for Social Security, creation of private accounts and progressive indexing of benefits, are far more likely to destroy the program than to fix it.

Together, these proposals would so reduce the value of regular benefits that Social Security would become much less important as a source of retirement income for average workers and virtually irrelevant for those with relatively high incomes. Over time, that would undermine Social Security's broad public support by turning it into essentially a welfare program.

Of course, that's probably the whole point. Several of the individuals and organizations that have been pushing the idea of private accounts have made no bones that their ultimate goal is to get rid of Social Security and make everyone responsible for financing their own retirement.

. . .

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1. The rest of the article provides a very good catch-up primer

on the Bush Social Security Rip-Off and the many things wrong with it.

Worth a read even for the well-versed.

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2. Duh

Stating the obvious....

The goal is to get rid of Social Security in the long run, and in the short run, make some bucks for *'s favorite brokerage house of choice in managing those private accounts.

Oh, yeah, and there's also that raiding of the trust fund that needs to be done.

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3. I find it nice that the obvious is being stated on Bloomberg terminals

around the country's financial services offices, where they might not have known about the offset-rate of 3% + inflation that their Bush investment accounts would have to hit for them just to break even.

Berry summarizes quite nicely the most egregious aspects of the Bush Social Security rip-off, and his audience is financial services professionals who (in my experience) haven't really been paying attention to what a rotten deal the plan really is.

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4. kick