OPINION & EDITORIAL
Social Security is a student issue, too
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Also by Tammy Baldwin:
- Baldwin appeals to students (November 1, 2002)
- Rep. Tammy Baldwin welcomes back students (August 30, 2001)
Related Stories:
- Social Security needs makeover (February 15, 2007)
- What Social Security crisis? (January 20, 2005)
- Overhauling Social Security (September 27, 2005)
- Social Security in need of overhaul (March 10, 2005)
- Social Security for future generations (January 21, 2005)
by Tammy Baldwin
Monday, March 28, 2005
Although Social Security is not a topic that young Americans are accustomed to talking or thinking about, I strongly urge UW students to not let the current Social Security debate pass by without making your voice heard.
With all the talk of retirement benefits, disability benefits, survivor benefits and protecting voters over age 55, you may think this is an issue that doesn’t affect you. Yet the fact is, college students and other young people may have the most to lose if the President is successful in privatizing Social Security.
Those of you who will graduate from college this year have seen America change drastically over the last four years. When you entered college, the United States was at peace and the country enjoyed enormous budget surpluses created during the Clinton Administration.
The country is now in the unenviable position of financing two wars, while at the same time trying to grapple with the record deficits created by the policies of President Bush and his party’s leadership.
These deficits make ensuring the “solvency” of Social Security more difficult than it needs to be.
Right now, Social Security collects more in payroll taxes than it pays out, so there should be a surplus stored in the Trust Fund. But while originally pledging to not touch the Social Security Trust Fund, Republicans have spent every nickel of it trying to mask the huge deficits they created.
Social Security will start paying out more than it collects in payroll taxes in about 15 years, and in forty or fifty years, depending on whose estimate you look at, it will only be able to pay about 80 percent of promised benefits. Democrats and Republicans agree that this solvency problem must be dealt with sooner rather than later; but they disagree on the best way to do so.
Republicans propose private accounts, which do not directly address Social Security’s solvency and will actually make it worse by diverting money away from Social Security into private accounts. President Bush himself admits this.
Republicans also propose borrowing $5 trillion over twenty years, much of it from foreign governments, to make up for the money diverted to establish private accounts. They would also cut guaranteed benefits by more than 40 percent for everyone, whether or not someone opened a private account, to pay for the private accounts.
These trillions of dollars in debt will mean higher taxes for your generation while, at the same time, you’ll get stuck with drastically lower guaranteed benefits when you’re ready to retire.
While retirement may seem light years away to you now, consider that if you have ever worked, you are already a part of the Social Security system and have already started to earn your future benefits.
The President admits that privatization is not a solution to Social Security’s problem, yet he and Congressional Republicans continue to campaign around the country without being honest about its consequences — steep benefit cuts and huge deficits.
Social Security can be fixed without drastic benefit cuts and without creating huge deficits if Republicans will drop their preoccupation with private accounts and join with Democrats to forge a bipartisan solution. Don’t let the Social Security debate pass you by. Come to a town hall meeting I’m holding on Wednesday night, March 30, from 7 - 8 p.m. at the Pyle Center and let your voices be heard.
Tammy Baldwin is a United States Congresswoman.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 9:09am):
I applaud the Congresswoman for trying to get students involved with this. Of course, I think she's a left-wing nut job. Nonetheless, I hope that she can help all of us who have been begging students to get involved in an issue that is critically important to our generation.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 9:11am):
"Republicans propose private accounts, which do not directly address Social Security's solvency and will actually make it worse by diverting money away from Social Security into private accounts."
If "diverting money away from Social Security" is such a big problem then you better look into the current system, which diverts HUGE amounts into current US Government expenditures completely unrelated to SS. The US Government spends the money and replaces it with IOUs written to itself. Just where do you suppose that the money to pay off these IOUs will come from in 15 years? There are only two possibilities - tax increases or reduced benefits.
The Ponzi scam also known as Social Security can not last forever. It will be harder for the politicians to steal from the future if at least some of the money is in private accounts.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 10:09am):
i hear allot of bitching about Bush's plan in this letter... and then a comment about "join the democrats to work out a plan" yet I see no propsal of your own. This is a typical democrat response... hate what bush does because it is bush, but have no option yourself. Nice job.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 10:24am):
Translation: "We don't want you to be in charge of your money, you're too stupid which is why we have the government here to spend it for you"
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 10:27am):
This is one of the more disgusting things I've seen on the BH op/ed page, I'm almost surprised at how low Ms. Baldwin stoops.
I certainly hope readers are intelligent enough to realize that the "surpluses" she speaks of were a)projections and b)projections caused by the largest economic bubble in our lifetimes.
I hope they are also intelligent enough to know that congress has been spending the SS surplus ever since there has been one, through both R and D adminstrations.
The rich people that Baldwin and her friends so disdain are going to be just fine regardless of whether SS is fixed or not. The question is whether the middle class will be hung out to dry because Democrats don't understand money.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 11:06am):
"projections caused by the largest economic bubble in our lifetimes."
What are the administration's claims of a ~6% return in the private accounts based on then?
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 11:13am):
Our current system of SS may be in need of a change but there is no reputable economist who supports Bush's wacky plan. All it is going to do is put SS in a HUGE HUGE debt for a very very long time because it is going to be incredibly costly to set these private accounts up. SS probably does need some work, but I don't think the Bush plan addresses any of the issues and only makes SS even more of a cluster fuck.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 11:18am):
Raise the retirement age to 70. There is no reason it needs to be where it currently is. Along with this, increase the amount of money I can put into IRAs and 401K type plans. I'll save for myself and get SS at 70 to use as travel money. Why do Republicans and Democrats need to point fingers at each other and cast blame. Both parties spend too much on the wrong things and then lie about it. Just fix the problem!
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 11:55am):
As a person who actually has to pay for SS in 30 years, my solution is to drastically cut future benefits.
In order to do that, we should probably let those folks who plan on being retired then know about it now so they can plan for it.
Basically, let's drastically scale it back to only benefit those older folks who truly need it.
Wealth indexing is huge, and could fix all our problems immediately, if done right. There is no reason why Bill Gates needs to aid the effort to bankrupt the country just so he can have some extra walking-around money. Do you have any idea how much SS will pay out for him if nothing changes? Why have working class folks pay a huge payroll tax to afford him that luxury?
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 12:04pm):
"All it is going to do is put SS in a HUGE HUGE debt for a very very long time..."
How is this somehow different than the current situation - SS has a HUGE HUGE HUGE unfunded liability already. Putting some small part of the SS taxes beyond the grasp of politicians for current spending (current case) only make it more likely that there will be some funds available for future retirees.
PS. The unfunded liability of Medicare makes the SS thing look like very small change.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 1:00pm):
All forms of welfare for old folks are going to be expensive. The funniest part is we deserve it because they vote and we're all too stupid to.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 1:07pm):
WHERE IS BALDWIN'S SOLUTION? All the problems she states can only be solved with the help of a time machine. What does she propose we do NOW!?
Bush's proposal has plenty of flaws. But instead of dwelling on them, Democrats should take this opportunity to either delineate how to fix those flaws, or come up with a whole new solution of their own.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 1:24pm):
IF THE DEMOCRATS AREN'T PROPOSING THEIR OWN SOLUTIONS, THEIR CRITICISM IS WORTHLESS! SOCIAL SECURITY NEEDS TO BE SOLVED NOW! PRIV...ER, PERSONAL ACCOUNTS FOREVER! PRAY FOR TERRI! SADDAM PLANNED 9/11!
Because Rep. Baldwin refuses to buy into the Bush Administration's manufactured hysteria on Social Security, her arguments are invalid. Gotcha.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 2:10pm):
"Because Rep. Baldwin refuses to buy into the Bush Administration's manufactured hysteria on Social Security"
The math required to see the SS problem is at the 2+2=4 level. But then Baldwin has a ticket on the Congressional retirement gravy train and doesn't have to worry about SS.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 2:30pm):
COMMENT DELETED: Inappropriate language, off-topic
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 3:06pm):
Remember back to 2000... we had a chance to elect Dr. John Sharpless of our very own history department.
He was a smart, pragmatic, moderate republican who would have done an outstanding job representing this district (not to mention a damn good prof). If he would have written this editorial, it would have been a smart and balance evaluation of the plan and its alternatives.
But Madison just couldn't bring itself to elect a person with an "R" next to his name. So instead of pragmatism, we get the talking points that Tammy got from the DNC.
If we're lucky, Dr. Sharpless will throw his hat back into the political ring someday. Who knows, Senator Sharpless has a nice ring to it.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 3:22pm):
"but there is no reputable economist who supports Bush's wacky plan"
I beg to differ...
Burton Malkiel - Princeton
Jeremy Siegel - U of Penn
Andrew Samwick - Dartmouth
N. Gergory Mankiw - Harvard
Martin Feldstein - Harvard
Harvey Rosen - Princeton
Kristina Forbes - MIT
James Poterba - MIT
Gary Becker - U of Chicago
James Buchanan - George Mason
And thats just a list that i could come up with off the top of my head, i'm sure there would be more if i looked into it. And if their universities don't qualify them as "reputable"... there are a few nobel prize winners in the list too.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 5:36pm):
Yep, Prof. Sharpless kicks ass. I hope he runs again and wins.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 5:37pm):
COMMENT DELETED: Inappropriate language
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 6:55pm):
Too bad David Clarenbach didn't get in to this seat years ago. He'd probably still be there and be actually accomplishing things.
Has Baldwin ever really done anything?
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 7:53pm):
Well, you have to define "do anything"
She is about the only member of congress that still thinks that single payer government health care is a good idea.
Oh, and she likes to complain about free trade, showing her vast knowledge of economics.
Anonymous (March 28, 2005 @ 9:29pm):
COMMENT DELETED: Inappropriate language
Anonymous (March 29, 2005 @ 8:14pm):
For those of you who are calling for the democrats to create their own plan for Social Security reform, perhaps you've forgotten that democrats don't control Congress. Republicans do, and they've demonstrated that they aren't interested in working bi-partisanly on anything that would benefit the American people. Instead of reaching across the aisle to accomplish something worthwhile, republican leaders deny democrats' legislation a spot on the agenda because they are more hell-bent on using precious time to pass frivolous bills that appease their Christian-right base.
There are some good republicans out there who recognize how harmful President Bush's privitization plan would be to the Social Security system. Unfortunately, they don't have the final say with the republican leadership. There are plenty of democrats with suggestions to offer, but I doubt they'll be allowed the opportunity to contribute any time soon.
Congresswoman Baldwin's appeal to republican leaders to work bi-partisanly on Social Security reform is a reasonable and beneficial proposition. I wish republican leaders could stop playing defense for once and consider alternatives to their plan.
Anonymous (March 29, 2005 @ 8:25pm):
Republicans have turned into the party of fiscal irresponsibility. They demand services and refuse to pay for them. They fail to look even 10 years into the future when drafting legislation that will have lasting impacts.
Here are the facts: Bush's plan proposes borrowing $5 trillion over twenty years to make up for the cost of creating private accounts. We all know debt is bad -- Bush even says so -- so why is he willing to go forward with his plan? Because he's not planning on paying for it! That'll be our generation's burden!
Bush's plan would also cut benefits by more than 40%, whether or not you opt to privatize. He has to do that because every dollar that is diverted to a private account is a dollar lost from the system. Less money in the system, less services the system can provide. There's some simple math for you.
Would you willingly trade in your car for a more expensive one with fewer features? No. And on top of that, would you agree to pay for your neighbor's leather interior package because your neighbor wanted to pay less for his car? No. It's the same situation with Bush's privitization plan. It's a raw deal for our generation, and we need to speak out about it!
Anonymous (May 7, 2005 @ 6:15pm):
IM doing a math project "save the world"
Im going to do a documentary on bush's plan
and I need all the information I can get
Im also going to try to raise money since they claim that social security is bankrupt
I need all the information I can get
My email is bballergirl88@aol.com
and my number is 516-378-8336
Please help
