From: Richard Arsinow <richard.arsinow@rauland.com>
Subject: There's NO reason to NOT reform
At Becky Kavoussi's suggestion, I read the Economic Opportunity Institute's report. It stresses the life insurance, disability insurance, redistribution of wealth, COLA and low administrative cost aspects of Social Security.
It does not mention the benefit-to-contribution ratio of past generations, the present generation or future generations.
It asserts the following regarding proponents of privatization:
>They are all financed by Wall Street investment houses and insurance companies.
>They are right wingers who have an idealogical fixation against any role for government in guaranteeing shared social security.
>They would take apart Social Security and transform it from an insurance program to an investment scheme.
>They would require that workers invest a certain portion of the Social Security taxes taken out of their paychecks in the stock market.
>"This approach does not provide beneficiaries with guaranteed benefits. Indeed, it undermines economic security, raises taxes, reduces benefits and diverts funds from actual benefits into the hands of Wall Street. Proposals under this approach are non-solutions."
The Economic Opportunity Institute says that we must make sure that any changes in Social Security:
*preserve current benefit levels, including COLA rates,
*find the resources to expand benefits,
*make sure our workers don't have to work until age 70 to claim benefits, and
*insure that Social Security funds go to pay for retirement and disability, not Wall Street brokerage fees.
The proposal by the Cato Institute addresses all of these concerns except for the redistribution of wealth beyond providing a minimum 'safety net' retirement income. It is self-funding in perpetuity, and addresses the transition costs in a sensible way. Further, current workers would have the option to stay under Social Security. Many of the criticisms of privatization by the Economic Opportunity Institute do not apply to the Cato Institute proposal because it has already addressed their concerns head-on, along with the concerns of today's retirees, today's workers and tomorrow's workers.
The Economic Opportunity Institute calls Social Security "our nation's most solid and successful insurance program." They never used the word 'fair'. They fail to mention that your grandparents' insurance premiums were a tiny fraction of yours, and your grandchildren's insurance premiums will be several times if not many times yours, for the same coverage.
Social Security is a bad deal. It is broke(n). We must fix it---sooner, not later.
