Social Security & Medicare Notes

Bush Says Everything is on the Table - Rove Says no.

Karl Rove says April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Private accounts must be part of any permanent Social Security fix, said Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff, expressing optimism Congress will end a partisan standoff and pass such a measure this year.

``The personal retirement account has to be part of the long- term solution,'' Rove, Bush's chief political and policy adviser, said in an interview in Washington yesterday. ``The public and Congress are becoming aware that it's a serious problem.'' Bloomberg

But George Bush said at his March 16th Press Conference "Personal accounts do not solve the issue. But personal accounts will make sure that individual workers get a better deal with whatever emerges as a Social Security solution."

If personal accounts really did offer a better deal for workers, then they would solve the problem within Social Security. But since when has the Bush administration been concerned with the problems of the American People? The only problems he acts on are those of the Republican Party, and Social Security is a problem for the conservatives in the Republican Party. It is the single most successful social program the government has. That is the so-called problem he is trying to solve.

The only reason for private accounts is conservative ideology. The lower income Social Security recipients will not get as good a deal as under Social Security's current guaranteed benefits, and the only way to achieve the switch to private accounts is for the government to borrow massive amounts of money to pay benefits to current recipients. This would be on top of the massive debt that Bush has already run up to pay the deficit he has already created.

The increased government debt would require higher interest rates, slow the economy, and probably cause inflation. Personal accounts are nothing but unnecessary trouble for this nation.

Bush and Rove's demand that any solution includes private accounts will mean that there is no solution during the Bush administration.

posted by Richard @ 9:28 PM