A new study blows away the claim that Hispanics would benefit from privatization. From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
The President’s Social Security plan, which reduces the program’s funding shortfall entirely through benefit cuts that slice deep into the benefits of middle-class retirees, would harm Hispanics. Hispanics would be better off under plans that employ a balanced mix of benefit reductions and progressive revenue changes. Simply stated, Hispanics would be harmed disproportionately if large cuts are made in a system from which they disproportionately benefit.
Also, the President’s plan places the burden of reducing the shortfall almost entirely on younger workers and future generations. This would disproportionately harm Hispanics because the Hispanic population is overwhelmingly young.
posted by Hans Riemer at 7:39 PM
10 Comments:
Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, eh?
Nope, not partisan at all...kinda like Hans Reimer!
Hey, you ever going to answer my challenge to describe to us the positives of the Hans Reimer/Rock the Vote plan for Social Security for those of us under the age of 30? This is now the fifth time I've asked you this, and believe me, I'm logging each and every time you ignore it. You prove my point more and more every day, in ignoring a simple challenge while citing totally partisan sources like the CBPP.
Here is a partial list of the positives of strengthening Social Security instead of replacing it with private accounts.
-- No massive upfront government borrowing that falls disporportionately on young people to repay in order to "pay off" long term liabilities that there is no real reason to pay off
-- No excessive reliance on benefit cuts that takes money out of the pockets of young people down the road
-- Protection of the safety net which ensures that this country is the kind of place we all want to live in, where people do not fall into poverty if their investments fail
-- Making Social Security more fair for everyone by raising the salary cap on Social Security taxes
-- Bringing both sides together on at least what they should be able to agree upon, which is boosting the fund modestly
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is not partisan. But they do defend Social Security because of its importance to young people, seniors, low income families and the middle class. There is a difference between having an opinion and being partisan.
Hans
Hans,
I respectfully dissagree with most of your points.
-- No massive upfront government borrowing
If we were allowed to opt out of the system and attach a receipt with our tax returns showing a deposit into a private annuity of the equivalent amount (Suggested by Milton Friedman in 1959, Capitalism and Freedom) there would be no need for "massive upfront government borrowing".
-- No excessive reliance on benefit cuts
An improved return on investment offered by the ability to invest a portion of YOUR money would reduce the "excessive reliance on benfit cuts".
Regarding your point of losing money prior to retirement, ASSET ALLOCATION. It's not like they are putting some 80 year old's funds into bio-tech stocks. The portfolio would become more conservative as the person gets older (By the way, bonds typically perform better during market slumps, so they would most likely make out better).
-- Protection of the safety net
How can you consider what we have a safety net? The Govt. (Dem or Repub) can change the benefits anytime they have the votes. The money is ours and not the Governmet's, we should have a say as to what is done with it. The safety net is a "guaranteed" 2% return, do you own a financial calculator? Its a wonder that the system has lasted this long, it will take incredible amounts of money to keep this system afloat with that return.
-- Making Social Security more fair
What about everyone who dies prior to collecting benefits? Where is the "fairness" in that? If we had ownership of "our" money, that would not be an issue. What about the ability to pass on the unused funds to your family to help create wealth? How is it fair that I cannot do that? How fair is it that my money is being used to fund govt programs instead of being put away for my retirement?
I have no problem with the Govt. requiring US citizens to save for retirement, what I have a problem with is that they do not allow private companies to compete in an open market with the government for the chance to provide those services.
I do have to congratulate Hans for finally posting his view of why we should strengthen SS instead of privatizing.
I would also like to point out a few errors in his logic:
1) "No massive upfront government borrowing that falls disporportionately on young people to repay in order to "pay off" long term liabilities that there is no real reason to pay off"
Just a note but as the population of the US gets older and a larger segment of the population begins drawing on Social Security it will be the youth of America asked to shoulder their skyrocketing costs. So, as the President and numerous economists have stated, we either pay a large price now or pay a much larger one in the future. Personally I'd rather we privatize, pay the bigger cost now and ensure that my Grandkids in 40-50 years aren't saddled with this same mess and outrageous payroll taxes.
2) Which benefit cuts are your referring to? So far all we've heard is the current batch of retirees will face no benefit cuts, but if you're referring to our generation as those who will be hit with cuts because of your estimates on how a privatized plan will work, then I think you're being a bit disingenuous.
3) I don't think anyone (except some of my hard core Libertarian brethren) are advocating we eliminate the safety net altogether, but it would be a good idea to lessen the dependence people have on the government, while making sure they get to keep the money they make even if they die before being able to receive benefits.
4) Raising the cap is not fair, unless you feel its a good idea to limit job and business growth. When you raise the cap in your plan do those individuals who pay more into SS receive higher benefits or lower?
5) Instead of boosting the fund why don't we kill all spending of the yearly surplus and then cut spending to cover future costs? Why is the only answer raising taxes? If this was a family budget and you knew in another two to three years you would be faced with having another mouth to feed while having your pay cut you wouldn't be finding ways to increase you spending you would be looking for ways to cut. Why should the government budget be any different than what its citizens go through each year?
QUOTE:
Here is a partial list of the positives of strengthening Social Security instead of replacing it with private accounts.
/QUOTE:
What does strengthening it actually mean?
The closest you actually come to a plan proposal is this:
PLAN:
So what do we think should be done? We have a three-point plan on that, too.
1. Improve Social Security so it can pay full benefits for everyone working today.
2. Build investments on top of Social Security, not raiding or replacing it.
3. Make changes in a way that fairly balances the interests of working and retired Americans, both today and in the future.
/PLAN:
1 and 3 are completely meaningless. They don't have any content, they just say make fair changes and improve socialist insecurity. HOW!?!
2 actually suggests that the government take additional taxes from us and have it invested for us. This would basically combine the worst of socialist insecurity since it wouldn't help fix it along with the worst of bush's plan since it would introduce govt control of some of the equity markets. Your plan totally sucks.
QUOTE:
-- No massive upfront government borrowing that falls disporportionately on young people to repay in order to "pay off" long term liabilities that there is no real reason to pay off
/QUOTE:
The government already owes the money the only question is when it will start paying it off. By putting more/all of the debt on-budget now by upfront borrowing, older people earning money now would be paying a big share of it, thereby starting to solve the problem and stopping pushing the problem off to later generations, namely the young.
QUOTE:
-- No excessive reliance on benefit cuts that takes money out of the pockets of young people down the road
/QUOTE:
Benefit cuts would give the youth of america control of more of their money now at the price of not being able to collect paltry benefits from an increasingly bankrupt social program
QUOTE:
-- Protection of the safety net which ensures that this country is the kind of place we all want to live in, where people do not fall into poverty if their investments fail
/QUOTE:
If you want to ensure against poverty, and you want to make the b.s. assumption that private charity isn't the best and most humane way to take care of poverty, then just use the welfare program. Everything would be on-budget and funded in a transparent manner, as opposed to with social security where we're lied to with a 'trust fund' which is really money the government owes itself but treats like an asset.
QUOTE:
-- Making Social Security more fair for everyone by raising the salary cap on Social Security taxes
/QUOTE:
Ah, raising taxes on the rich. And that won't hurt the economy.
QUOTE:
-- Bringing both sides together on at least what they should be able to agree upon, which is boosting the fund modestly
/QUOTE:
What fund? The socialist insecurity 'trust fund'? That's just money the program lends to the U.S. treasury so that congress can piss it away in the general budgetary process, spending it on pork barrel projects and the War in Iraq, etc.
THERE IS NO FUND!!!!!! STOP PRETENDING LIKE THERE IS!!!
QUOTE:
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is not partisan. But they do defend Social Security because of its importance to young people, seniors, low income families and the middle class. There is a difference between having an opinion and being partisan.
Hans
/QUOTE:
For real information, try www.socialslavery.com
www.bureaucrash.com
Hans-
The above few people already did a good job of attacking your faux "positives" of your "plan", so I won't address them.
What you did not do, however, is actually answer my question. I asked you to present to me the POSITIVES of the Hans Reimer/Rock the Vote plan to save Social Security, NOT for a reiteration of what you feel the "negatives" of the Bush plan are.
You have effectively proven my point for me, again- that neither you nor the left have a PLAN for Social Security that does anything good for people our age. I asked you to show me something- EVEN ONE THING- that makes your plan for Social Security better for young people than the Bush plan.
You couldn't even dig up one. You couldn't point out how their rate of return would be increased, or how their payroll taxes wouldn't go up, or anything to the sort- because the current system offers none of those possibilities. Instead, all you could do was demagogue the Bush plan some more.
If that's your answer to my challenge, it's a very weak one.
anon, I can't really speak for Hans, but I do see that his idea of a positive to keeping the current plan is what he calls "making the system more fair", "no massive upfront government borrowing", "no excessive reliance on benefit cuts" and "protection of the safety net which ensures that this country is the kind of place we all want to live in." These are positives in his view and so I think he did answer your challenge, however all he has proposed is higher taxes and more spending, hardly what most people would consider as a positive action for the economy or those of us that pay taxes.
You guys---I don't mean any disrespect by not responding more, but I just can't keep up with you. Its all I can do to post on the blog.
So I'll start with a response to Sean's first point, up on the blog.
No promises about how often I can do this.
Look Hans-
I'm not going to be a blatant partisan on this issue. I want the solution that is best for my generation, because this generation is too often ignored when it comes to social program spending. Both Democrats and Republicans want US to shoulder the cost for heavy entitlement program spending, and that is why we have the very trust fund problem we do now.
That's why I asked you for POSITIVES. I already know you despise the Bush plan, but that doesn't show me ANYTHING about why YOUR plan is beneficial for us. When I asked you for positives about your plan, I asked you honestly, because I really want to see something POSITIVE come out of your side of this debate.
You didn't respond with anything positive. You responded with negatives. It seems me that you're more interested in demagoguing and attacking the President than you are with actually coming up with a plan that gives US the best possible deal.
And that's pretty disingenuous. If you really care about Social Security and OUR generation's burden on this issue, you'll stop repeating liberal talking points about why the President's plan sucks, and you'll present POSITIVES and HOPE for once about your own side's ideas. I don't want to hear "the other guy's plan DESTROYS this" and "DESTROYS that". I want to hear "My plan OFFERS this" and "OFFERS that."
I'm going to present my challenge to you one more time, because I'd really like to see someone on the liberal left, for once, come up with a POSITIVE agenda with IDEAS and OPPORTUNITY for once. Here's hoping that you can actually present that.
Latinos have the most to gain from Social Security reform, and the most to lose without it.
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