Thursday May 27

[National Dialogue Moderator <moderator>]

Today Maureen asks: What do you think of Kolbe's claim that he has
put together a bill that best suits the needs of women? I believe
there is a general consensus among policymakers that Kolbe's bill
is a serious attempt to better meet women's retirement needs within
the current system. That said, however, a private retirement system
in which every worker could choose to deposit his or her payroll
taxes into a personal savings account and invest that money over
a working lifetime would provide virtually every woman with greater
retirement benefits than would Social Security or the Kolbe plan.
(To read more about this type of system and its impact on women,
go to: http://www.socialsecurity.org/women.html) In addition to
providing women with greater retirement security in real dollar
terms, personal accounts would return to women their natural right
to take charge of their own destinies and to control the course of
their own lives. Every day, we balance our checkbooks, pay our
mortgages and run our family businesses, and most of us say we
would like to exercise that same control in our retirement planning.
Compare that to Social Security under which the federal government
extracts more than 12 percent of each paycheck, mandates our
retirement age, and then calculates our monthly retirement checks.
Most of us say we would prefer to keep our money, choose when to
retire, and build our own nest egg through planning, saving, and
investing.

Those workers who would like to continue relying on Social Security
could do so, but those of us who do not--those of us who dream of
the opportunity to live more independently--should be allowed to
opt out of the current system.  Kolbe's plan does not empower women
with either the freedom or financial security that could be achieved
through a system of personally owned accounts.

Darcy Olsen