Bush's New Social Security Tactic
Share and save this post:
AlterNet Social Networks:
Belief:
Atheism and Diversity: Is It Wrong For Atheists To Convert Believers?
Greta Christina
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
How One Journalist Learned About Modern Union-Busting the Hard Way
Seth Sandronsky
DrugReporter:
The War on Weed: Marijuana Is Basically Harmless -- The Monumentally Stupid Drug War Is Not
Jim Hightower
Environment:
White House Garden Won't Make Up for Obama's Nomination of Pesticide Lobbyist for US Chief Agriculture Negotiator
Jill Richardson
Food:
Don't Be Scared of Food: Are We Being Needlessly Hysterical About Food Safety?
David E. Gumpert
Health and Wellness:
47,000 Women Could Die As a Result of the New Mammogram Guidelines
George Lakoff
Immigration:
Republican Playbook on Immigration Debate Long on Emotions, Short on Facts
Mary Giovagnoli
Media and Technology:
Rabid Right-Wing Media Mogul Building a News Empire
Jamison Foser
Movie Mix:
Disney Apocalypse: Why 2012 Sucks
Alexander Zaitchik
Politics:
Shocking: High School Grads Twice As Likely To Be Jobless Than College Grads – and Right-Wingers are Profiting From Their Pain
Adele M. Stan
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Why Can't We Look Away From Sarah Palin?
Vanessa Richmond
Rights and Liberties:
Whatever Happened to the CIA Black Sites?
David Corn
Sex and Relationships:
"You Like That Baby, You Like That?": Has Porn Made Men Bad at Sex?
Cord Jefferson
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick
World:
Is Obama Following in the Footsteps of Bill Clinton?
Jeff Cohen
As a result of George, Dick Cheney, and a plague of other big-shot Bushites going on this cross-country flim-flam tour, more Americans now oppose Bush's scheme than before the White House crew ventured out of Washington. So Bush & Company are now trying a new tactic: Class war.
George W. has come out for an arcane proposal he calls "progressive price indexing" as a new way for the government to calculate the amount of your Social Security check when you retire. Striking a populist pose, which is awkward for this elitist, rich son-of-a-Bush, George asserts that his accounting gimmick will fix most of the long-term financing gap in Social Security by cutting the benefits of the rich and increasing those of the poor.
But Mr. George Jennings Bryan is a fraud. The poor would get no increase in benefits under his indexing, and a millionaire's reduction would amount to only one percent, which is insignificant to the rich, since they don't depend on Social Security for their retirement.
The devastating cuts under Bush's "progressive" indexing would come in the retirement checks of the middle class. An average worker earning about $36,000 today would face a 16-percent cut in benefits, while those earning about $58,000 would see a 25-percent cut. The cuts grow more severe for today's youngsters who are not yet in the workforce. Coupled with Bush's privatization scheme, his indexing plan would leave millions of middle-class Americans with a monthly Social Security check at or near zero.
That's George's real goal: Gut Social Security. The rich don't need it, it'll pay zip to the middle class, and it'll become just a poverty program that then can easily be cut by future Bushites. That's not populism--it's cynicism.
Jim Hightower is the best-selling author of Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush, from Viking Press. For more information, visit jimhightower.com.
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »
You've chosen to turn comments off for the entire site. Would you like to turn them back on?
Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
EMAIL
PRINT
19 COMMENTS
