Bush Wants to FIX, Not Destroy Social Security

Adam Entous is the writer here, and of course this is a news story with the editorial comment “leaving the president few options other than a sharp increase in government borrowing.” The president doesn’t necessarily think you need to raise taxes nor borrow nor go into huge debt for these transition costs. So this has got the Democrats now just totally stymied. They just don’t understand how this could be because see for Democrats, you have to understand, nothing is possible without a tax increase. You can’t have a tax cut without a tax increase even. No, I mean literally, folks. Nothing in this country. McNabb can’t win the Super Bowl without a tax increase. So we go first to Miss America. This is Nancy Pelosi yesterday afternoon and she held a news conference, an unidentified reporter said., “I believe you’ve said in the past that private accounts would destroy Social Security.”
PELOSI: There are those who set out to undermine Social Security and one of their tactics was to introduce privatization of Social Security, introducing these private accounts. I have questions about them, but as I said, I’m willing to go to the table with no preconditions. You know what the right wing of our country did on this subject. About a generation ago, in their interest to eliminate Social Security, they developed an age warfare. They undertook a multi-multi-multi-million dollar initiative to convince young people that they wouldn’t see a dime of Social Security [sic].
RUSH: Folks, these people are absolutely… I don’t know. I’m in the Twilight Zone again. This is like Kofi Annan and the U.N. with their anti-corruption day yesterday. There’s nothing in this that’s true. She didn’t say one thing that is true. Let’s go through what she said. “There are those who set out to undermine Social Security and one of their tactics was to introduce privatization”? That’s Harry Reid. It’s obviously a coordinated attack. It’s from the 30-year-old dusty old playbook, not updated, nothing new, same old charge refuted by the evidence. The recipients of Social Security are the first ones to know that Ms. Pelosi is making all this up and lying through her teeth about it. “You know what the right-wing of our country did on this subject? About a generation ago, in their interest to eliminate Social Security.” There has never been an interest in eliminating Social Security. It’s not a political reality. There is no serious elected official on the Republican side who has ever, ever, ever advanced — probably hasn’t even thought about it — eliminating Social Security, and then she says they “developed age warfare”?
“They undertook a multi-multi-multi-million dollar initiative to convince young people they wouldn’t see…” You know who figured this out first? The young people! When they get into the job market and they start to see what their FICA deduction is and they start adding things up and Ms. Pelosi, this is not a multi-multi-million dollar effort. This is one of the cheapest efforts in the world. It’s called “the truth.” It’s un-fundable now. People paying into Social Security are not getting their own money back; they’re getting the money paid by current taxpayers. Now, let me give you the numbers. Right now, it takes the payroll taxes of four workers in this country to provide benefits for one Social Security recipient. It used to be 12. It used to be 15. It used to be that no taxpayer had to fund a recipient’s Social Security because his own contributions came back to him. But that ended years ago when the numbers of workers and retired got to a certain level where there were more retirees than workers and bammo! The truth is the truth. Right now the burden of providing benefits per beneficiary is four workers. In 20 or 30 years, without changes, that burden is going to be down to two workers.
So it’s going to take the taxes of two workers so the burden is going to double on people who are working to pay Social Security benefits unless we do something. This is not a multi-multi-multi-million dollar effort. It’s the truth, Ms. Pelosi. The biggest problem the left has — and that’s hard to say. Now I may be wrong about it, but the biggest — they can’t even deal with the truth. They can’t see it when it’s looking right at them. When they do see it, they ignore it, make it up. It’s just incredible. There is nothing to this effort but a desire to improve it and make it better. Folks, how long have you been alive? If you’ve been alive whatever, 30 years, 20 years, how many years you been paying attention to politics? I will wager that every year of your vast attention to politics, you can recall debates every year about the crisis in Social Security, can you not? We have been hearing it — and how many times in your lifetime has it, quote-unquote, “been fixed”? We had the Dole Commission back in the ’80s. We’ve had a number of commissions to fix it, but we don’t fix it.

We just paper it over so it will last, you know, another 20 or 30 years, delaying what needs to be done. What George W. Bush is attempting to do is fix it. Not mend it, and not sustain it on a false and phony foundation, but to fix it. To actually make it produce something that is substantive on its own. Bush’s plan is designed simply to — it’s a small first step. It’s 4%! I cannot believe that there’s this level of panic. Well, I know why the panic is, because even at 4%, the Dems seem even further erosion of their control over the seasoned citizen population, over government. That, they cannot abide. But this whole point, Bush’s whole point, is to expand this program so that it is something that’s self-sufficient from retiree to retiree, so that other taxpayers don’t have to end up paying for a current recipient’s benefits. Now, that’s way down the road. It’s going to have to happen in steps. It’s not happening all at once. It’s not the end of Social Security. It’s the strengthening of it. It’s modernizing it. It’s reforming it. This is a 1934 program. It’s 2004. It’s a 70-year-old program. It needs to be updated and reformed, and this is a sincere and serious effort to do so. The fact that the Democrats are not willing to actually help their constituents by making a program they believe in even better because they won’t get credit for it is telling about who they are. She then continues. I want to see if you figure this next bite out. She then continued. Remember, she just left off saying they undertook a multi-multi-multi-million dollar initiative to convince young people that they wouldn’t see a dime of Social Security and here’s what was next.
PELOSI: Now, you’re all young people and I’m sure you’ve heard that. Anybody here who’s 25-years-old will have — is Social Security secure at least for another 40 years. So who are we talking about here? So but this is interesting. Undermine Social Security by pitting ages against each other, convincing young people it’s not going to be there for them. That’s the beginning of the end for Social Security; the end of the concept of one generation helping another generation. So I — you know, I’m in a Show Me situation. Show me how you can take money out of a situation where you’re concerned about having enough money to make ends meet and have those ends meet. Show me how, depending on the market which, you know, I’m…I’m a free marketer. I respect the market, will guarantee the annuity of that — our seniors’ needs. I’m open to it all. Constant, bold experimentation.
RUSH: What that that you just heard has a term. It’s called “Wandering aimlessly for a thought.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, folks. It’s been pointed out to me Nancy Pelosi said something here that’s quite interesting. Let’s go back to audio sound bite #6. This is the first couple of sentences I want you to listen to here.
PELOSI: Now, you’re all young people and I’m sure you’ve heard that. Anybody here who’s 25 years old will have — is Social Security secure at least for another 40 years.
RUSH: Stop the tape! She’s talking to a bunch of 25-year-olds. ” Don’t worry, Social Security is secure for another 40 years.” What’s 40 plus 25? It’s 65! She’s telling them right when they hit retirement age, Social Security is bankrupt. (Laughter) If you’re 25, it’s secure for another 40 years. You can’t get it until maybe 55, but yippee. She just cooked her own goose! I missed that the first time around. I was focused on other things.
END TRANSCRIPT

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