Bush Supports Personal Retirement Accounts

“In an ownership society, more people will…have the confidence of owning a piece of their retirement. We will always keep the promise of Social Security for our older workers. With the huge Baby Boom generation approaching retirement, many of our children and grandchildren understandably worry whether Social Security will be there when they need it. We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger workers to save some of their taxes in a personal account — a nest egg you can call your own, and government can never take away.”

Those are the words of President George W. Bush, delivered at the August 2004 Republican Convention. While it is just a small statement, it is big, good news.

Reforming Social Security was a taboo topic in Washington for a long time—it was the third rail of politics that politicians were afraid to touch. The last vestiges of this fear can still be seen in the Democrat platform, and heard in the speeches of their candidate John Kerry. He still addresses the pressing issue of Social Security’s collapse like so many before him: he’s not talking about it much, and when he does, he says it just needs to be “tweaked.” Tweaking the program in the past has meant raising taxes and cutting benefits.

“Tweaking” the Social Security system to slightly prolong its inevitable failure is no longer acceptable to the voters of America who want to be sure they will have something to rely on in their retirement. Everyone—at least everyone outside of Washington DC—knows that Social Security is going bankrupt and that something new needs to be done. Raising taxes and cutting benefits has been done time and time again to prolong the life of the system. But this does nothing to permanently guarantee a prosperous retirement. It only permanently guarantees more tax hikes and benefit cuts. The system is inherently flawed and requires fundamental changes.

President Bush is proposing fundamental changes by calling for workers to be allowed to own and control a portion of their Social Security tax dollars in personal retirement accounts. This enables us to have a tangible asset as we go into retirement, rather than relying on a promise from the government that there will be funds available from the crumbling system.

This draws a bright line between the President and Senator John Kerry on the issue of Social Security. Senator Kerry has said he would not allow workers to voluntarily opt to have personal retirement accounts, preferring instead to force everyone to stay in the rapidly deteriorating Social Security program.

There are excellent bills already circulating in Congress similar to what President Bush is supporting. These bills do not raise taxes, do not cut benefits to retirees and allow workers to voluntarily opt-out of the current Social Security system by instead putting half of their Social Security tax dollars into an account they would own and control. The accounts from which workers could choose would be limited to diversified mixes of stocks and bonds, and the investment providers would be approved by the government. This is similar to the successful Thrift Savings Plan retirement program currently administered for federal employees. On the slim chance that our savings by retirement did not provide as much as Social Security would have, the government would top-up the difference in most reform plans.

Reforming Social Security to allow us to own our own retirement funds will be the biggest and best policy change our country has seen in a long time. But it won’t happen unless you let the candidates know you want it to happen. Let the Bush campaign and the Kerry campaign know today that you, a voter, want this to happen, and click here to automatically send your elected officials this urgent message.