Bamboozled: Destruction of Social Security Would Harm Blacks

A big hoax is about to be pulled on the American people in the name of Social Security reform if President Bush and the Republican Congress get their way and send Social Security money to Wall Street.  If this happens all Americans will lose big but African Americans will likely receive the shortest end of the stick.  Social Security "reform," codeword for privatization, seeks to divert all or a portion of the funds currently supporting the Social Security program into 401K-type accounts that individuals can invest in the stock market. While this idea may seem innocuous on its face, the reality is that privatization is a duplicitous attempt to renege on our country's promise to provide reliable support to aging retirees, disabled workers, and orphaned dependents. Supporters of individual account proposals seek to perpetuate the fiction that Social Security is facing a fiscal crisis that can be solved only by privatizing the system. In reality, Social Security's "crisis" is thus: in the year 2052 the Social Security trust funds will be able to pay 80 cents on every $1 in benefits promised. What privatizers don't want Americans to know is that this 20 cent gap per dollar of promised benefits is manageable and can be closed without radically altering the system. In fact, the tax cuts President Bush gave away to the wealthiest one percent of Americans could have covered the amount of the long-term Social Security shortfall and there would have still been money left over for other important priorities. [more]

• If Bush Gets His Way on Social Security Watch Out [more]