<![CDATA[The White House is floating the idea of substantial reductions in Social Security payments. How they reconcile this with their "crisis" and privatization program is impossible to imagine, but basically even if the changes President Bush seeks are implemented, we're on our own (as if today's payments are a living retirement).
From the Wall Street Journal:
From: Wehner, Peter H.
Subject: Some Thoughts on Social Security
I wanted to provide to you our latest thinking (not for attribution) on Social Security reform.
I don’t need to tell you that this will be one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times. If we succeed in reforming Social Security, it will rank as one of the most significant conservative governing achievements ever. The scope and scale of this endeavor are hard to overestimate.
Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notion that younger workers will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction, unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the pre-condition to authentic reform.
Given that, our aim is to introduce market reforms in Social Security and make the system permanently solvent and sustainable.
There’s more to the memo and you should read it. In short, the average person is now on their own, screwed as far as the programs that used to provide some help in retirement. The Bush administration is going into high gear to fuck the people’s programs before they leave office, if they ever leave office.]]>