Bush to privatize Social Security if Dems don't win majority

A lot will be at stake this November -- maybe even more so for seniors and young Americans.  The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that President Bush will restart his push to privatize Social Security in 2007 if Republicans regain control of the House.  John Marshall of TPM Cafe reports:

In an interview published today in The Wall Street Journal (sub.req.),President Bush told editorial page editor Paul Gigot that next year heplans on partially phasing out Social Security and replacing it withprivate accounts, and that he thinks he can do it as long as theRepublicans retain control of Congress, which he thinks they will.

President Bush's Social Security privatization proposal calls for private savings accounts.  The proposed switch from public to private accounts would add $2 trillion to the National Debt over the next ten years due to transition costs.  Ten years after that, the privatized Social Security system would cost $3 trillion, $5 trillion the decade after that, and $5 trillion the decade after that -- most of which would have to be borrowed from foreign banks in China and the Middle East.  All this added debt would be a birth tax on future generations.

Lastly, even more fundamentally, Bush's privatization proposal cuts guaranteed benefits for seniors and future retirees:

According to the Social Security Administration's chief actuary, amiddle-class worker retiring in 2022 would see guaranteed benefits cutby 9.9 percent. By 2042, average monthly benefits for middle- andhigh-income workers would fall by more than a quarter. A retiree in2075 would receive 54 percent of the benefit now promised.

This is what the President and his Republican Congress want to happen next year if they regain control of Congress.  So who are you voting for this November?
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Other sites blogging about Social Security: Digg, Raw Story, TPMCafe, Crimes and Corruptions of the New World, Speaking Truth to Power, The Pennsylvania Progressive, Impolitically Correct, The Opinion Mill, Democrats.com, Mass Eye Opener, Suburban Guerrilla, Running From the Thought Police, News Trash, Celtic Progressive.