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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (84815)	11/2/2000 1:54:04 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Okay, so based on the replies I have gotten, it sounds like what Bush said was just a useless political comment. Worse than useless in my opinion, since he proposes to privatize SS, thus spending the surplus (whatever the current Congress leaves of it) on payments to grandma, plus he's spending the very same surplus on a huge tax cut. Whenever this is pointed out to him, he accuses the questioner of "fuzzy math". Definitely running on the pro-ignorance platform.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (84815)	11/2/2000 2:28:27 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 132070

It's not entirely useless in that the return to the recipient depends on their age and their contributions. I think the 2% return may also be the average return to the average recipient. This will go down in the future and for some recipients near term, it may already be negative since the more you contribute to the system the less you get back pro rata. You can play games with it by rigging the CPI down by 1.5 points but that only hurts the recipients in the future. Also, they've increased immigration this decade. Of course, if this new population doesn't carry health insurance or has special needs, it creates another set of problems such as high educational costs, uninsured workers, and environmental degradation from urban sprawl.