Reply #31: I think you're missing the point.

[enlightenment]

Of course my bank is a private entity. The government, however, is not. Social security is a government process - individuals earn money, pay SS tax to the government, and - if they are lucky - eventually collect some monies during retirement.

The government does not hold these monies in a lock-box waiting for beneficiaries, but in the past the distribution of the monies was from the Treasury to the individual. Do they use banks to hold the money they collect and distribute? I believe they do, but the fees incurred are on the Treasury's side, not the beneficiaries side and the checks issued were official government checks. The bank(s) that hold the monies do not control access to the funds or dictate terms of use. Beneficiaries are not charged fees to use the money by the bank that is holding the funds - because while the bank is holding the money, the government is the distributor.

The Treasury is changing the flow of SS funds to beneficiaries by inserting a privately held, for-profit corporation (the Comerica Bank) between the Treasury and the beneficiaries. The bank becomes the distributor and apparently - based on the article I cited - will be able to charge fees to use the debit cards they will issue.

Do you believe they are going to return those fees to the Treasury to be reinvested into the SS program? That's pretty pie-in-the-sky. A private company is being given control over SS funds. That is a form of privatization, regardless of your knee-jerk support for the idea of debit cards.


As for your suggestion - I thought it through it through quite well, but thank you for suggesting I do so. I'll say the same for you. You over-reacted to one word - privatize - and blew a simple statement into some bizarre conspiracy on my part. Frankly, the only failure of comprehension here is yours.