Social Security
Bush is an advocate of the partial privatization of Social Security wherein an individual would be free to invest a portion of his Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts.
Bush has called for major changes in Social Security, identifying the system's projected insolvency as a priority early in his second term. From January through April 2005, he toured the country, stopping in over 50 cities across the nation warning of an impending "crisis". Initially, President Bush emphasized his proposal for personalized accounts would allow individual workers to invest a portion of their Social Security Tax (FICA) into secured investments. The main advantage of personal accounts within Social Security is to allow workers to own the money they place into retirement that cannot be taken away by political whims.
Most Democrats and some Republicans are critical of such ideas, partly because of the large (US$1 trillion or more) federal borrowing the plan would require, which might actually worsen the imbalance between revenues and expenses that Bush pointed to as a looming problem; and partly because of the problems encountered by the United Kingdom's privatized pension plan. See Social Security debate (United States). In addition, many Democrats opposed changes that they felt were turning Social Security into a welfare program that would be politically vulnerable. Portions of Bush's bill exempting private companies from social security payments have led to complaints that Bush's plan was created to benefit private companies, and that it would turn Social Security into just another insurance program.
Read more about this topic: Domestic Policy Of The George W. Bush Administration
Famous quotes containing the words social security, social and/or security:
“Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)