Bush Chooses Structure For Private Accounts [Say Anything]

The Bush administration has settled on a proposal for how to structure the investment side of the private Social Security accounts he's been advocating.

WASHINGTON - President Bush's advisers have settled on a proposal for structuring the personal accounts they hope to create in Social Security, while on Capitol Hill Senate Democrats were launching an effort to defeat the plan altogether.

Under a plan recommended to Bush, the private accounts would resemble many company-sponsored retirement plans, with just a handful of investment options.

By default, workers would be enrolled in a "life cycle" account, in which investments become more conservative as investors age, if they do not choose one of the other options, according to two officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

Sounds reasonable enough to me.

Of course, the Democrats are girding themselves for battle over the plan.

On Friday, Senate Democrats were to hold a session aimed at showcasing the problems with Bush's overall plan to let workers divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into individual accounts that could be invested in the stock market. Among those testifying before the panel were a pair of workers from the Social Security Administration complaining that the employees are being used for political purposes to sell the Bush plan to the public.

"The president is certainly going to use his megaphone to convince people this is a crisis, and he's dead wrong on that," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, which works to promote party policies on the Senate floor and is sponsoring Friday's session. "We have to make the case that he's wrong."

Ugh. There's my Senator spouting the DNC's "There is no crisis" nonsense. Which begs the question, "Why do we have to wait for a crisis in order to fix a problem we know exists now?" This stance the Democrats are taking on this issue is nothing short of appalling.

What's behind it is the fact that the Dems don't want Social Security fixed during a Republican administration. If this weren't true they'd be introducing some alternative legislation in congress right now. But they're not. Instead they're trying to stonewall the issue for purely partisan reasons. Instead of an opposition party, this is what we're getting:

[Cross-posted at Say Anything]

posted by Ace at 09:42 AM

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