Homestead mailing list

["Melody O." <melody AT crecon.com>]

At 09:41 AM 2/11/05 -0700, you wrote:
>This is from the highly conservative National Review Online:
>http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200502100848.asp
>
>February 10, 2005, 8:48 a.m.
>The Real Reason for Social Security Reform
>If we don’t overhaul the program, your income taxes will skyrocket.
>
>At long last, we are finally starting to get some meaningful details about 
>President Bush’s Social Security reform proposal. <snip>

>I have heard more than a few people discuss Social Security reform as if 
>the private accounts will magically fix Social Security without any 
>necessity of reducing benefits. Indeed, they are adamant that there not be 
>any cut in benefits whatsoever, now or at any time in the future.
>
<snip>
>
>In order to induce people to make this trade-off, Bush strongly emphasizes 
>that the status quo is unsustainable in the long run. He points often to 
>the fact that the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in the year 
>2042. At that point, current projected revenues from the payroll tax will 
>only cover about 75 percent of promised benefits. The implication is that 
>benefits will either have to be cut across the board by 25 percent or the 
>payroll tax rate will have to rise by about 4 percentage points.

I ran across this bumper sticker: "You can fool some of the people all of
the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
  --- President George W. Bush, speaking at a Gridiron Club dinner,
Washington, D.C., March 2001

I wonder if the SS Reform fits into this category?

Best wishes,
Melody