Topics in the News: Privatization
Paul Ryan on Social Security
: Oct 11, 2012
Voluntary privatization for younger workers
Q: You were one of the few lawmakers to stand with President Bush when he was seeking to partially privatize Social Security. RYAN: For younger people. What we said then and what I've always agreed is let younger
Americans have a voluntary choice of making their money work faster for them within the Social Security system.
BIDEN: You saw how well that worked.
RYAN: That's not what Mitt Romney's proposing. What we're saying is no changes for anybody
55 and above. And then the kinds of the changes we're talking about for younger people like myself is don't increase the benefits for wealthy people as fast as everybody else, and slowly raise the retirement age over time.
BIDEN:
All the studies show that if we went with Social Security proposal made by Mitt Romney, if you're in your 40s now, you will get $2,600 a year less in Social Security. If you're in your 20s now, you get $4,700 a year less. It is absolutely the wrong way.
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Source: 2012 Vice Presidential debate
Paul Ryan on Social Security
: Aug 11, 2012
Give millions a chance to prosper in investor class
I have proposed reforms that would put an end to the raid of the Social Security Trust Fund, give millions of low-income Americans a chance to prosper in the investor class, and restore confidence in the intergenerational compact of Social Security.
I have proposed giving younger workers the voluntary option to invest over 1/3 of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts. These benefits will become the property of the individual, which can be passed onto their heirs. These voluntary
retirement accounts also have built-in safeguards to minimize risk--with a guaranteed minimum benefit, while still allowing for growth far above the chronically low rates of return in our current system. The real risk to individuals contributing to
Social Security comes in the form of those clinging to the status quo. If we do not place Social Security on sound financial footing now, there will be painful adjustments in the years ahead. My proposal would make Social Security permanently solvent.
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Source: 2012 House campaign website, ryanforcongress.com, "Issues"
Paul Ryan on Social Security
: Apr 24, 2012
Enthusiastically promoted Bush's semi-privatization scheme
In 2000, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore pilfered Ryan's proposal to preserve Social Security trust funds in a "lock box." In 2006, Ryan turned down the offer to be Pres. Bush's new budget director. Later that year, when the Democrats retook th
House, the disheartened new minority turned the page by allowing Ryan to leapfrog over a dozen more senior Republicans and become their Budget Committee ranking member.Despite all the accolades, Paul Ryan had functioned as little more than policy arm
candy for his party. His Social Security lock box proposal had gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled House. Instead of reducing the federal deficit, as Ryan had advocated, the Bush administration opted for sizable tax cuts. Ryan had been among the
few GOP House members to enthusiastically promote Bush's Social Security semiprivatization scheme and was chagrined to see his colleagues "hit the brakes" on the president's proposal, while Ryan described himself as "obviously a gas=pedal guy."
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Source: Do Not Ask What Good We Do, by Robert Draper, p.137
Virgil Goode on Social Security
: Apr 21, 2012
Preserve and protect Social Security
We must preserve and protect Social Security. Social Security is owed over two trillion dollars.
Social Security should be repaid and have real money in the Social Security Trust Fund and not IOU's.
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Source: 2012 presidential campaign website goodeforpresident2012.com
Paul Ryan on Social Security
: Apr 2, 2012
Current policy is raid, ration, raise taxes, & deny problem
Social Security's trust funds will be exhausted by 2036. [The current] combination of policies--raid, ration, raise taxes, and deny the problem--will mean painful benefit cuts for current seniors and huge tax increases on younger working families,
robbing them of the opportunity to save for their own retirements. And it will mean that those pledges of future health and retirement security that the government is currently making to younger families are nothing but empty promises. Unless government
acts, Social Security will remain threatened for current seniors and will not be there for younger families. It is morally unconscionable for elected leaders to cling to an unsustainable status quo with respect to America's health and retirement security
programs. Current seniors and future generations deserve better than empty promises. Current retirees deserve the benefits around which they organized their lives. Future generations deserve health and retirement security they can count on.
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Source: The Path to Prosperity, by Paul Ryan, p. 51
Andre Barnett on Social Security
: Jan 2, 2012
Opposes privatizing Social Security
Q: Do you agree or disagree with the statement, "Privatize Social Security"?
A: Disagree, we need to provide an option but not mandatory privatization.
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Source: Email interview on presidential race with OnTheIssues.org
Ron Paul on Homeland Security
: Dec 10, 2011
17,000 troops for Baghdad embassy? Come home!
Q: Would you extend the payroll tax cut, and what about the Social Security Trust Fund?A: I want to extend the tax cut, because if you don't, you raise the taxes. But I want to pay for it. And it's not that difficult. In my proposed budget,
I want to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from overseas. The trust fund is gone. But how are we going to restore it? We have to quit the spending. We have to quit this being the policemen of the world. We don't need another war in
Syria and another war in Iran. Just get rid of the embassy in Baghdad. We're pretending we're coming home from Baghdad. We built an embassy there that cost a billion dollars and we're putting
17,000 contractors in there, pretending our troops are coming home. I could save [billions] and we don't have to raise payroll taxes.
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Source: Yahoo's "Your Voice Your Vote" debate in Iowa
Mitt Romney on Social Security
: Sep 12, 2011
Congress taking money from Trust Fund is criminal
PERRY: You said that if people did [what Social Security does] in the private sector it would be called criminal. That's in your book. ROMNEY: Governor Perry, you've got to quote me correctly.
You said it's criminal [as a Ponzi scheme]. What I said was congress taking money out of the Social Security trust fund is like criminal and that is and it's wrong.
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Source: 2011 GOP Tea Party debate in Tampa FL
Jill Stein on Education
: Sep 29, 2010
Vital public system under attack from privatization
What if a quality public school, integrated into the fabric of the local community, was available to every student, without charge? In Massachusetts, our public schools and colleges are the cornerstone of our democracy and provide the foundation for our
citizens' economic success. But now this vital system is under sustained attack from privatization interests who undermine public schools as part of an effort to advance charter school interests.The funding of education is clearly at a crisis point.
Years of neglect, fiscal mismanagement, and promotion of privatization have combined with a budget shortfall to seriously threaten the viability of our public education system. If we tilt toward privatization, it will produce a stratified collection
of schools that will make education more expensive, separate schools from their communities, and lead inevitably to the abandonment of the concept of equal access to education. Party leaders are now actively promoting charter school encroachment.
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Source: 2010 Gubernatorial Campaign website jillstein.org, "Issues"
Marco Rubio on Social Security
: Mar 28, 2010
Keep raising the retirement age on the table
Q: In the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago, you wrote: "Privatization of the accounts has come and gone. There are other alternatives such as raising the retirement age, etc." Are you saying that you will consider such benefit cuts as raising the
retirement age?RUBIO: Well, first of all, I think a great starting point for this conversation is the Ryan roadmap.
Q: This is Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
RUBIO: Correct. I think it's a great starting point. He does include individual accounts as part
of his plan.
Q: I'm asking you about your plan.
RUBIO: On the individual accounts come and gone, that debate happened a few years ago and every year that goes by, it becomes more difficult to accomplish that. But certainly, I think if you're
55 years of age or older, this is off the table.
Q: So, would you raise the retirement age?
RUBIO: I think that has to be on the table. That's got to be part of the solution, the retirement age gradually increases for people of my generation.
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Source: Fox News Sunday 2010 Florida primary Senate debate
Mitt Romney on Social Security
: Mar 2, 2010
So-called "Trust Fund" has defrauded American people
A fiction that's often used to obscure the extent of the crisis is the so-called Social Security Trust Fund, which the American public is assured has a large positive balance. Yet it is not a fund in the conventional sense of the world. From the fund's
inception, money collected from payroll taxes hasn't been "locked away," but rather has been used to pay benefits of current beneficiaries. There simply is no "fund" safely invested somewhere, and therefore entitlement programs will consume an ever
larger share of our economic output. There is no fund, and there is no silver bullet.To put it in a nutshell, the American people have been effectively defrauded out of their Social Security. In 1982, the government raised Social Security taxes with
the intention of creating a surplus that could be set aside in some fashion for the baby boomers when they retired. But for the last thirty years, the surplus has been spent, not on retirement security, but on regular budget items.
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Source: No Apology, by Mitt Romney, p.157
Hillary Clinton on Social Security
: Apr 16, 2008
Bipartisan commission, like in 1983, to address crisis
OBAMA: [to Clinton]: I think we should be honest in presenting our ideas in terms of how we’re going to stabilize the Social Security system and not just say that we’re going to form a commission and try to solve the problem some other way.CLINTON:
I am totally committed to making sure Social Security is solvent. You’ve got to begin to reign in the budget, pay as you go, to try to replenish our Social Security Trust Fund. And with all due respect, the last time we had a crisis in Social Security wa
1983. Pres. Reagan and Speaker Tip O’Neill came up with a commission. That was the best and smartest way, because you’ve got to get Republicans and Democrats together. That’s what I will do. And I will say, #1, don’t cut benefits on current beneficiaries
they’re already having a hard enough time. And #2, do not impose additional tax burdens on middle-class families.
OBAMA: That commission raised the retirement age, and also raised the payroll tax. So Sen. Clinton can’t have it both ways.
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Source: 2008 Philadelphia primary debate, on eve of PA primary
Ron Paul on Social Security
: Jan 24, 2008
Let people get out of Social Security; it’s a failure
Right now they’re getting behind because they’re having a 10% to 12% inflation rate and we give them a 2% increase, and they’re really hurting. I don’t want taxes on the Social Security benefits that they receive. I have a bill in that would secure the
trust fund, where none of that money could be spent in the general revenues. So in many ways, the goal would be to get us out of this program that is a failure. It doesn’t work, and is going to bankrupt this country. The only way you can do that is save
enough money, tide the people over, let the young people get out, because they’re going to be paying all these years and they’re not going to get anything. I probably have the only program that would really help the elderly because the money’s not going
to be there. There’s no way these cost-of-living increases are ever going to keep up with their benefits are never going to keep up with their cost of living. They’re decreasing. My program has a better chance of helping them than any other one.
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Source: 2008 GOP debate in Boca Raton Florida
Paul Ryan on Social Security
: Dec 18, 2007
Proposed bill to invest 50% of FICA in personal accounts
We will have to rethink Social Security because of our new ability to live longer. Everyone knows Social Security is going bankrupt. By 2017 Social Security will start running cash deficits. The trust funds run out in 2042.Suppose that workers were
free to save and invest, in their own personal accounts, up to roughly 50% of what they currently pay in payroll taxes. Employers would contribute the same amount to their workers' personal accounts out of the payroll taxes they currently pay on behalf
of their employees. This plan was proposed in a bill by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. John Sununu (R-NH). Lower income workers would be allowed to invest a slightly higher percentage of what they currently pay in payroll taxes, and higher-income workers
a little less.
If a personal account pays more than the Social Security benefits it replaces, [the taxpayer] gets to keep the gain. If the account is insufficient to pay for all the benefits it replaces, the government pays the difference.
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Source: Real Change, by Newt Gingrich, p.149-152&158
Hillary Clinton on Social Security
: Oct 23, 2007
1997: Hillary warned against privatizing Social Security
Following two and a half years of study, members of Bill’s Advisory Co until on Social Security offered proposals for investing a portion of Social Security retirement funds in the stock market.
Hillary reacted emphatically to the report, telling her husband, “We mustn’t let Social Security be privatized.”
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Source: For Love of Politics, by Sally Bedell Smith, p.269
Barack Obama on Social Security
: Sep 6, 2007
Privatization puts retirement at whim of stock market
Q: Would you raise the cap for Social Security tax above the current level of the first $97,500 worth of income?A: I think that lifting the cap is probably going to be the best option. Now we’ve got to have a process [like the one] back in 1983.
We need another one. And I think I’ve said before everything should be on the table. My personal view is that lifting the cap is much preferable to the other options that are available.
But what’s critical is to recognize that there is a potential problem: young people who don’t think Social Security is going to be there for them. We should be willing to do anything that will strengthen the system, to make sure that that we are being
true to those who are already retired, as well as young people in the future. And we should reject things that will weaken the system, including privatization, which essentially is going to put people’s retirement at the whim of the stock market.
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Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate at Dartmouth College
Barack Obama on Social Security
: Jul 23, 2007
No privatization; but consider earning cap over $97,500
Q: We all know that Social Security is running out of money, but people who earn over $97,500 stop paying into Social Security. The Congressional Research Service says that if all earnings were subject to payroll tax, the
Social Security trust fund would remain solvent for the next 75 years.A: I think that it is an important option on the table, but the key, in addition to making sure that we don’t privatize, because
Social Security is that floor beneath none of us can sink. And we’ve got to make sure that we preserve Social Security is to do the same thing that
Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill were able to do back in 1983, which is come up with a bipartisan solution that puts Social Security on a firm footing for a long time.
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Source: 2007 YouTube Democratic Primary debate, Charleston SC
Hillary Clinton on Government Reform
: Feb 21, 2007
Cut gov’t contractors and end privatization of government
I stood with AFSCME against the privatization of Social Security and now I want to stand with you against the privatization of our government. The Bush administration has been privatizing government services. In fact, now we have more government
contractors and grantees by three times the number than the entire military and Civil Service personnel. We have to stop that. And I have proposed cutting government contractors by 500,000 as soon as I’m sworn in and saving $8 billion to $10 billion.
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Source: 2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada
Page last updated: Apr 30, 2013