Entitled to Know

By Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare

The Bush administration continues its ongoing campaign to build a case for the same discredited Social Security “reforms” already rejected by Congress and the American people.

This second Treasury Department report on Social Security continues the administration’s intergenerational warfare propaganda by attempting to pitt baby-boomers against future generations by describing today’s retirees as receiving “excess benefits”.

These so-called “excess benefits” are actually about $1,000 a month for the average Social Security beneficiary. Two out of every three Social Security beneficiaries receive over half of their income from Social Security, and it's the only source of income for nearly one-in-five seniors. These are the realities beneficiaries’ face which receive little to no attention in this report.

While not offering proposals, this report does suggest private accounts as one of only two ways to pre-fund Social Security. Social Security is social insurance and should not be twisted to meet the Wall Street notion of what Social Security should be, a pre-funded system measured by investment rates of return. However, it is clear that this is exactly the case currently being built in these Treasury department reports