Bush's New Social Security Tactic

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http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/21984/

 

Bush's New Social Security Tactic

 

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. Posted May 11, 2005.

 

Excellent. Professor George W.'s " 60-day, 60-city, traveling medicine

show " to sell the miracle cure of his Social Security privatization

tonic to us gullible rubes--has been a bust.

 

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.