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Donald Trump on Social Security


Pay off debt; put $3T interest savings into Trust Fund

I would impose a one-time, 14.25% tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth over $10 million. That would raise $5.7 trillion in new revenue, which we would use to pay off the entire national debt. We would save $200 billion in interest payments, which would allow us to cut taxes on middle-class working families by $100 billion a year or $1 trillion over ten years. We could use the rest of the savings--$100 billion-to bolster the Social Security Trust Fund. By 2030, we [will have] put $3 trillion into the trust Fund, which would make it solvent into the next century.

[In addition to shoring up Social Security for the long term], I say it’s high time to separate Social Security from the general treasury. It is time to lock-box it and throw away the key.

The rich will scream. Only the top 1% of people-those with a net worth of $10 million or more-would be affected by my plan. The other 99% would get deep reductions in heir federal income taxes.

Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.169-171 & 201 Jul 2, 2000

Let people invest their own retirement funds

The solution to the Great Social Security crisis couldn’t be more obvious: Allow every American to dedicate some portion of their payroll taxes to a personal Social Security account that they could own and invest in stocks and bonds. Federal guidelines would make sure that your money is diversified, that it is invested in sound mutual funds or bond funds, and not in emu ranches. The national savings rate would soar and billions of dollars would be cycled from savings, to productive assets, to retirement money. And unlike the previous system, the assets in this retirement account could be left to one’s heirs, used to start a business, or anything else one desires.

Privatization would be good for all of us. Directing Social Security funds into personal accounts invested in real assets would swell national savings, pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into jobs and the economy. These investments would boost national investment, productivity, wages, and future economic growth.

Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.198-199 & 203 Jul 2, 2000

No government investment of retirement funds

I would never support what has to be the craziest ideas in the history of U.S. politics: allowing the government to invest Social Security retirement funds in the stock market. Not only would a market downturn spell disaster for millions of retirees, but the process by which government would choose stocks would also be entirely political, making lobbyists and other political hacks the new masters of the universe.
Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.273-74 Jul 2, 2000

Other candidates on Social Security: Donald Trump on other issues:
Pat Buchanan
George W. Bush
Al Gore
Ralph Nader

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