I favor the Kolbe-Stenholm plan because it creates a safety net provision of at least the poverty level benefit for persons who cannot work enough to qualify for that under normal Social Security rules now in effect. However, the majority of workers with qualify for twice the benefits pay-as-you-go SS can provide if public policy changes to funded Personal Retirement Accounts. It is disgraceful that the very people who create the economic growth of America are denied the opportunity to participate in that growth through ownership in the stocks of private sector companies. Wealthy people have the extra money to buy stocks even if the government appropriates 12.4% of their wages for low return Social Security. But lower paid workers are stuck with Social Security. The best way to prove my point is for you to ask anyone with a private pension if s/he would trade that for Social Security alone.
I speak to many groups in Colorado and I have never found ONE person who would trade his/her Public Employees Retirement Association program for Social Security. Seems wierd doesn't it that public employees benefit from private sector investment of their retirement monies BUT private sector employees are DENIED that right?
Your second question is biased and totally incorrect. Retirement money invested in the private sector achieves much higher returns that pay-as-you-go SS. With Personal Retirement Accounts people would have MORE money for food and shelter.
Your third question is also based on incorrect assumptions. Private sector investment will yield higher benefits to all who can work. FEWER people will need help from any source with Personal Retirement Accounts. There will be adequate money from private charities for those who truly can't work. The advantage of private charities is they can use the "tough love" approach. Many of the charity cases today stem from drug and alcohol induced disability and those people would have been better off from a tough love approach rather than the enabling approach of the federal government welfare system.
