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Bush Administration using Social Security Administration to scare up support for privatization

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 1 March 2005
15 comments

Edito Healthcare Governments USA

New Report Details the Politicization of the Social Security Administration Under President Bush

WASHINGTON - Today Reps. Henry A. Waxman, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, and Rep. Sander M. Levin, along with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, and Reps. Obey, Miller, and DeLauro, released a new report that shows how the Social Security Administration has modified its communications strategy to undermine public confidence in Social Security.

The report, based on a review of over 4,000 pages of Social Security documents from 1995 to 2005, reveals that the agency has systematically altered agency publications, press releases, PowerPoint presentations, website content, and even its annual statements to foster the impression that Social Security is "unsustainable" and "must change." The agency’s new pessimistic tone and emphasis echo President Bush’s warnings about the future of Social Security.

"The job of the Social Security Administration is to run the Social Security program, not to provide political cover for President Bush," said Rep. Waxman. "The agency has sacrificed its independence and abandoned its tradition of nonpartisan administration of Social Security."

"This blatant change in message and tactics is shameless politicization," said Rep. Levin. "The Bush Administration must stop using the SSA as it tries to scare up support for privatizing Social Security. The agency must reassert its independence and promote its goal - professional, nonpartisan administration of the Social Security programs."

The report provides detailed, side-by-side examples of the changes in Social Security Administration documents during the Bush Administration. These changes include:

– "The Future of Social Security" booklet - which used to begin: "Will Social Security be there for you? Absolutely" - now begins: "Social Security must change."
– Agency press releases on the solvency of Social Security have grown more dire even as the projections of the program’s long-term solvency have improved.
– Agency presentations have eliminated statements that assure beneficiaries that "there is no immediate financial crisis."
– The annual Social Security statement sent to Americans has dropped the assurance that Social Security will "be there when you retire" and no longer encourages Americans to think of Social Security as a "foundation on which to build your financial future."

The complete report is available at http://www.democrats. reform.house.gov.

http://www.commondreams.org/news200...

Forum posts

  • Thank you Congressmen (and women)Waxman, Rangel, Levin, Peloski, Hoyer, Obey, Miller and DeLauro. This is just one more example of Bush administration propaganda exposed. Who was paid off or threatened in the SSA to make these modifications?

    Does this president really think he supports liberty and democracy?? How can he be such a hypocrite and keep a straight face?

    I wonder if there is a hidden motive to explain why Bush is so determined to privatize SS? I did not think he was prone to anticipate potential problems too far in advance. Why is he obsessed with this issue when it is so far down the road? Is it merely to pay back his Wallstreet supporters?

    • Wall Street will get somewhere between $12 and $17 billion a month to "invest" for private individuals under Bush’s proposals, and the number will only go higher. Do you think that’s enough of a payoff?

      A continuing infusion of fresh capital on a predictable basis will cause enormous distortions in the markets and debase te entire idea of "free" markets. Say goodbye, not only to democracy, but capitalism as well.

      BUSH MUST GO! It’s the only solution. And he can take most of congress with him for that matter. If the politicians haven’t already destroyed our once-great nation, they’re getting pretty darn close. It may not be too late, but people have to take matters into their own hands and stop relying on government to do anything. The government IS THE PROBLEM. They are not part of the solution.

    • I agree with you on your last paragraph. But how do you propose people take matters into their own hands?

      I saw last night on CSPAN the ’State of the Black Union’ group discuss how to empower themselves. Are other groups uniting in attempt to stop the destructive path this administration is trying to take us on? It seems that religious leaders should become involved and get their congregations fired up and mobilized. And what about university professors and their students? It may not be ’politically correct’ for religious leaders and professors to do this, but we are not dealing with normal circumstances right now. We are dealing with very threatening and perhaps desperate circumstances.

    • Do you really believe that Bush is about destroying capitalism? It’s March 1, not April 1.

    • Good luck with the university professors. They are all worried about their jobs. And if your in Kansas, University professors are in the minority. Everyone is as religous as hell, and that door swings one way here, torwards the republican party. Thus, church groups trying to change things will not work: they are already working for Bush, trying their damdest to destroy whatever semblence of knowlege remains in education, by converting schools to bussness schools that require no education in the liberal arts and sciences. Thus, for the future the only thing that will matter is the bottom line, not ethics, not reletivism, not historical understanding, and not even the freedoms enshrinded in the Constitution. Hail Caesar...or is that Bush.

    • How did you know I was in Kansas?

      I cannot believe most religious leaders do not see the many,many hypocrisies in the Bush administration. Thou shall not steal? Thou shall not murder? Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor? And then there is the golden rule: ’do unto others as you would have them do unto you?’ [instead of he who has the gold, rules.]

    • Yes, Bush and his Adminstration are a bunch of crux. They don’t know anything. The stock market
      schema support by the anglo/american societies like Britain and U.S. makes it’s own economy and
      news. It is only a matter of time when reality becomes so bad, that faking the news will no longer
      work!

    • Yes, Wall St. would invest $17 billion a MONTH not in mom-and-pop stores, but in GE, Halliburton, Vivandi, Novartis etc. and in essense wipe out any competition or possibility of competition to them. A few international corporations would not only control the world’s business, but also the entire geopolitical spectrum internationally.

      It may be deliberate, or simply insidious, but financiers alone would decide whether AT&T would be a monopoly, not the voice of the people, as in the past. It would decide which media companies and Internet providers survive, and in so doing would control the information you are allowed to know.

      Many would say all this already has come to pass. Bush’s SS plan would put the nail in this coffin.

      This is what President Gen. Eisenhower saw, what he knew Sen. Prescott Bush and his cabal was planning and warned quite eloquently in his farewell to the nation in Jan. 1961:

      "In the councils of government, we must guard against
      the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
      unsought, by the military- industrial complex."
      President Dwight D. Eisenhower (http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm)

  • bush will invest the social security funds and put the profits in his pocket.if there are loses he doesnt care since it isnt his money.

  • I’m suspicious of someone who uses taxpayer money to "campaign" for something that those very same taxpayers do not support. I wonder why this topic is so important to them? I doubt it is our welfare that concerns them. Bush and Company are doing either one of two things: attempting to further entrench the working class American into a position of serfdom by destroying our social programs and creating trillion-dollar windfalls for Wall Street cronies, or....they’re using the Social Security issue as a smoke screen to distract us while engaging in other activities contrary to our best interest. You can bet the Crawford ranch that insuring the health and welfare of Social Security is NOT his agenda. Create another "crisis"...it’s all about fear. Either make us "afraid" of terrorists or hit us in the wallet...or both. Take our minds off the election fraud, take our minds off our boys and girls dying and maimed in Iraq, off the arsenic and mercury poisoning of our pregnant wives and daughters and their fetuses, off artificially high fuel prices, off skyrocketing medical and education costs...and never question the honesty and integrity of George W. Bush and his band of thugs....or you’re anti-American.
    How could we have been so gullible? We’d better wake up!!

    • Any Repubican that supports Bush’s outrageous attempt to dismantle SS should be voted out of office at the earliest opportunity. He is a traitor to the American people.

      Changing over to private accounts puts us much further into critical debt without even solving the original problem—the future ratio imbalance of workers to retirees.

      I wonder if Bush has borrowed (stolen) more money from the SS fund than we ever could have imagined? The missing nine billion might be just the tip of the iceberg.

  • Republicans are burning down the US economy while taking a walk on their own personal debts. They see the opportunity to suck the savings of millions of americans down into their bottomless pockets.

     Edward Lewis

    • Would you buy a used car from that man? Who would believe one word from that liar, just look into his face as he lies about every and anything he talks about. He is a very poor actor and his lies are written all over his face.

  • The last official act of any government is to "Loot the nation"

    America is crumbling due to the decadence and greed of the "privilaged whiny childs of the wealthy" This current generation of leaders should have been beaten more as kids.

  • that is put in his pockets he be like bill millken at wall street
    scandel remember that the workers will get scam from it like the
    enron deal and wall street shady deals this is not good for low
    income workers DanielK Vance