Nineteen Little Words: This Must Be Wonderland

Dear readers:
Here is a post from DailyKos (below). The Social Security plan put forth by George Bush is nothing more than the destruction of the Social Security System. The devil is in the missing details which, of course, Bush would not reveal in his SOTU speech. If he told the whole truth, no one, not even the ditto heads in Congress, would be willing to support it.

Bush failed to point out that Social Security checks for those young workers who opt into this new proposal would be smaller and would be subject to the ups and downs of the stock market.

Bush also failed to point out that the job situation is in dire straights. He boasted that there have been 2.3 million jobs added in the last year alone. The number was correct, except that the overall job loss in his first 4 years is astounding. He's still 300,000 jobs short of the number of jobs we had when he took office in 2001. You see, George is counting on us forgeting these things. And many will forget, if they ever realized it in the first place. There are still people who will believe everything George says as the gospel truth, no questions asked. Those people with no jobs, of course, will not have to worry about what Bush does to Social Security. They won't be eligible anyway.

Now here is another fact to know. You heard Bush try to make people think that, in 2018, Social Security will have to pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes.- about $16 billion more. What he failed to add is that the Social Security Trust Fund in 2018 will have more than $3.6 trillion in assets, as well as $206 billion in interest income that year. So in 2018 a small fraction of Social Security's interest income will be used to pay benefits.

The truth is: Social Security is financially stronger than it has been throughout most of its history, according to Bush's Social Security Trustees. Bush's own people say Social Security is strong.

But we all have reason to fear Bush. He was a big success on Wednesday night. He could still succeed in destroying Social Security, the environment, the system of checks and balances, and many other American strengths. He could take down our democracy. There are many Americans who believe Bush is defending American democracy. He is not. He stands for empire-building throughout the world. He could care less about democracy or world peace.

Here is food for thought:

Bush's "19 words"

by kos Thu Feb 3rd, 2005

Bush said:

And best of all, the money in the account is yours, and the government can never take it away.

Lies.

As the WaPo explains:

If a worker sets aside $1,000 a year for 40 years, and earns 4 percent annually on investments, the account would grow to $99,800 in today's dollars, but the government would keep $78,700 -- or about 80 percent of the account. The remainder, $21,100, would be the worker's. With a 4.6 percent average gain over inflation, the government keeps more than 70 percent. With the CBO's 3.3 percent rate, the worker is left with nothing but the guaranteed benefit.The wingers loved to dismiss Bush's Yellowcake lie by counting words.
So we'll spare them the trouble -- this one was 19 words long.

Update: A reader who understand this stuff better than me writes:
I see from the early comments that people find this hard to believe. And it is astonishing -- but completely true. The policy wonks call this the "clawback" provision -- the government 'claws back' most of what you make to fund the system. In fact, they claw back the principal plus the assumed 3% annual gain EVEN FOR A WORKER WHO EARNED LESS THAN 3%, so you could earn 2% a year and lose $$$ on the deal! As for why they do it: because if they didn't, they would basically have to wipe out the guaranteed benefit entirely to make the numbers add up.
Warning: next administration lie will be: "No, no, you can keep all of your account -- it's the guaranteed benefit that is reduced." Technically true but a canard, because the benefit reduction is based entirely on how much you put in your account. And the 'clawback' terminology tells you exactly what this is about -- taking back the private account earnings. (But you can see the political genius of this design: it will appear to people that they got a lot of $$$ from their private account but almost nothing from the "old SS system," destroying public support for the system.)

And BTW, this is all IN ADDITION to the cuts in guaranteed benefits Bush is expected to make for all retirees, regardless of whether you choose to put $$ into an account.This is Alice in Wonderland-level stuff, no doubt.

[Readers, post a response by clicking on Comments below. Let me know you are out there!]