Truespeak

As part of the never ending Social Insecurity Tour, Georgieboy made a stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, today in order to confuse the shit out of a bunch of old Republicans.To do this, he brought out the full arsenal of half-truths, fuzzy math, and downright lies. Let's go to the transcript:

[Incoherent babbling and requisite ass-kissing platitudes offered up to pretend as if he's interested in the local politicians]...

Let me talk about Social Security. I'm talking about Social Security because I see a problem, and I believe the job of the President is to confront problems and not pass them on to future Presidents or future Congress. That's what I think you elected me for. (Applause.)

First, I agree with Chuck when he said that Franklin Roosevelt did a good thing in creating the Social Security system. Social Security has worked for a lot of people. It has provided a safety net for a lot of citizens. The problem is, there's a hole in the safety net for a generation which is coming up, and let me tell you why. Let me -- I'll just put it in personal terms. There's a lot of people like me getting ready to retire. We're called baby boomers. I turn 62 in 2008. It's a convenient year for me to retire, by the way. (Laughter.) We are living longer than the previous generation. We have been promised more benefits than the previous generation. See, people ran for office saying, vote for me, I'm going to give you more benefits if you put me in. So you've got a lot of baby boomers getting ready to retire who will be living longer years and promised more benefits. That's part of the math. The other part of the math is that there are fewer workers paying for people like me.

This is, of course, not true. People aren't actually "living longer years" but more people are surviving into their retirement years. With the advances in medicine and less hazardous work conditions, people aren't dying as young as they once did. This is a minor detail, but part of the whole Bush plan to deceive.

In 1950, there were 16 workers paying into the system for every beneficiary, so you can see the load wasn't that heavy. Today, it's 3.3 workers for every beneficiary. Soon, it's going to be 2 workers. If you're a younger person going to community college here, you're going to have to pay a lot of money out of your pocket to make sure I get the benefits I'm promised unless we do something different.

This is a blatant scare tactic implying that if he doesn't get his way your taxes are going to be raised through the roof. It's shameless. The truth is, a minor raise in the Social Security tax cap could solve a lot of the problems he says the system is now facing. And the best part is that this minor raise in the cap wouldn't even effect most of the people currently paying taxes. The only people that would be affected would be those that are currently making over $90,000 a year.

So the math has changed. The system is an important system, but it's got a hole in the safety net. I say, the hole in the safety net for the younger workers because if you're somebody who's retired or near retired, somebody born prior to 1950, you don't have a thing to worry about. The promise will be kept. I don't care what the politics -- politicians say, I don't care what the propaganda says. The truth is, this government will keep its promise to those people who are receiving their check today and the promise to those who were prior to 1950. (Applause.)

Maybe I've missed it, but I have yet to see this "propaganda" claiming that seniors are going to have their benefits cut. The information I've seen refers to benefit cuts for younger workers. Another brazen attempt to scare senior citizens.

When the math has changed like it is, the system starts going in the red pretty quickly. In 20 -- 2017, there's going to be more money going out than coming in for Social Security. By the way, we don't have a trust in Social Security. It's called, pay-as-you-go. See, some people think there's a Social Security trust where we've taken your money, and we've held it for you, and then when you retire, we give it back to you. No, what happens is we take your money, we pay money out for the promises for those people who have retired, and if we've got anything left over, we spend it on things other than Social Security. That's just the way it works. It's been working that way for a long period of time. And what's left are a pile of IOUs, paper.

That explains why he spent all that time correcting Al Gore in the 2000 debates when Gore kept referring to the Social Security trust fund. NOT! The real reason there is no trust fund per say is because any extra social security money that there is/was gets absorbed into the budget and is spent as capital leaving Social Security with just enought to pay it's bills.

[...] if you think you've got a good idea, bring them forward. And people need to understand that, that we want to listen to good ideas. President Clinton has some ideas when he was the President. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan had some good ideas. As a matter of fact, in 2001, he was the Democrat Senator from New York, he'd retired; I asked him to serve on a commission to look at Social Security. Republicans and Democrats came together and they came up with some very interesting ideas to fix the problem permanently. They didn't sit around the table and say, I'm not going to listen to your idea because you happen to be a Democrat, and I'm not going to listen to your idea because you happen to be a Republican. They said, we have a duty and an obligation to come together and make recommendations to the President and the Congress, not based upon parties, but based upon what will work.

And one of the ideas they brought forward, both Republicans and Democrats brought forward, is in order to make the system work for younger workers, that they ought to -- we ought to allow younger workers to set aside some of their own money in a personal savings account as part of the Social Security; in other words, a voluntary program that says you should be allowed to take some of your own money -- after all, it is your payroll tax -- and put it aside in an account of bonds and stocks. That's what you ought to be allowed to do.

This is a half-truth at best. Both President Clinton and Senator Moynihan did indeed discuss private investment accounts but in a much different way than what Georgieboy is talking about. Clinton and Moynihan suggested private accounts in addition to social security, not in place of it. The Clinton/Moynihan plan wouldn't have diverted any money from social security the way Bush's plan would and there were no transition costs involved unlike the $2 trillion that would be necessary for Georgieboy's little ponzie scheme. President Clinton also suggested investing some of the excess social security money into the stock market, but the Republican controlled congress claimed that it would be too risky and shot it down.

Now, this doesn't fix the system permanently, but it makes the system a better deal for younger workers, and I'll tell you why. First a conservative mix of bonds and stocks earns a better rate of return on your money than the money that's being held in the Social Security -- by the government. And that's important for people to understand. (Applause.)

If it doesn't fix it, why are we even talking about it? I thought Georgieboy was elected because he wasn't going to pass problems onto future generations. Whoops!

And as that money earns, it is a compounding rate of interest. It grows. For example, you take a worker making $35,000 over his or her lifetime, and say, for example, a third of the payroll taxes, or 4 percent, were allowed to go into a personal savings account, that the nest egg that person would own over time in a conservative mix of bonds and stocks would grow to $250,000, see. That would be a nice part of a retirement package.

That's assuming that the average worker is making $35,000 per year over his or her lifetime. Still, that means an investment of $1400 per year for approximately 42 years and getting a steady rate of return of at least 3%. That's assuming an awful lot. What if a worker can't work for a while because of a disablity? What if the rate of return dips below 3%? None of these things are guaranteed.

There will be a Social Security system that the government is going to pay you benefits. I can't pay you how much until we get people together to the table. But it will be augmented -- your Social Security plan, your benefits will be augmented by the money coming out of your own account. In other words, money grows if you hold it over time. It's not growing right now at a significant enough rate. It will grow if you're able to save it.

WTF? What he's failing to say is that your benefits will only be augmented if your investments earn over what is expected. If they earn under the expectations, your benefits are not guaranteed.

[More babbling and bullshit "questions" asked by ardent supporters to make it look like George knows what the hell he's talking about]...Thanks for coming today. I appreciate your time. God bless. (Applause.)

I'm not sure how many more stops on he has left on this geriatric scare-fest, but it appears as if he's striking out mightily. According to Time magazine, his poll numbers are down to 31% approval/58% disapproval on social security while the latest Gallup Poll puts his overall approval rating at 45%. Way to go Georgiboy. Keep lying and I'm sure things will work out for you. Hell, it got you re-elected didn't it?