Best one paragraph summary of why SS reform sucks

[markus]

I have to participate in an anti-privatisation event tomorrow, and I've been off doing my homework.

I found the single-paragraph summary of why Bush's ss privatization plan sucks:

"The president has chosen to finance a series of tax cuts for people earning more than $100,000 a year by selling these bonds to the central banks of China and Japan, and to Social Security. Now he says that he doesn't want to pay back what he's borrowed from my generation's retirement fund. That's just wrong. Worse, what kind of message does it send to the Chinese and others that Bush plans to offer an additional $2 trillion in bonds when the U.S. government takes the position that these are just IOUs that don't need to be repaid?"

Matthew Yglesias in The New Prospect in http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8976">There is No Social-Security Crisis

P.S. -- He left out Saudia Arabia (remember, the People Who Attacked us on 9/11) as among our major creditors. But otherwise it's about perfect.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I'm not that in love with it. You can also argue that it has been the

middle-class Baby Boomers who have provided Wall Street with its advances the last couple of decades, with 401Ks and IRAs and mutual funds. Now that the Boomers are going to retire, the money will be going out of the stock market and the whole scheme to 'privatize' is to boost the investment business. My answer if SS is going broke, is to spread the pain around...let the Pentagon have the IOUs for a while. If we can pay out nearly $500 billion a year for that, we can pay SS benefits.


Edited: put that important 'is' in there

[caty]

2. I sent this out to

everyone on my e-mail address list:
http://www.bushin30years.org/view/winner.html?flash_id=87?id=5498-5563556-AhJxFlkZvkdd9RyT6o_Mzw