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President George W. Bush’s controversial plan to restructure and privatize Social Security could have a devastating impact on all Americans -- and blacks in particular, according to black congressional leaders, civil rights activists and economists. Bush used last week’s State of the Union Address to promote a plan to create individual accounts out of the nation’s Social Security system. Bush proposes a structure that would allow Americans younger than 55 to invest a portion of their payroll taxes into individual retirement accounts for stocks and bonds. Bush administration officials say the restructured Social Security program would require workers to accept smaller monthly checks from the Social Security administration, but upon retirement, workers would collect the savings and investments from their personal accounts. Black Democrats, economists and the NAACP immediately criticized Bush’s proposal, saying individual accounts would increase budget deficits substantially and further jeopardize retirement options for blacks who have relied on Social Security for the past 70 years. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) said that Bush’s proposal would be “devastating” for blacks. She said blacks have relied on Social Security for decades -- for retirement support, survivor benefits when there is a death in the family and for sending young people to college. “Social Security reaffirms our commitment to a better quality of life,” Jackson Lee told BlackAmericaWeb.com last week. “African Americans in particular would be impacted by privatization programs that would cause to crumble a system that’s strengths come from investments from participants.” [more]