🚀 go-pugleaf

In ca.general Gunner <gunner@lightspeed.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Jul 2005 21:14:47 +0000 (UTC), Merlin Dorfman
> <dorfman@green.rahul.net> wrote:

>>>>    But that's really beside the point.  The point is that the
>>>>purpose of Social Security is to provide a minumum guaranteed
>>>>income to everybody, regardless of the state of the economy, or the
>>>>state of the stock or bond market, or the quality of investment
>>>>choices made by the individual. 
>>
>>> And again you are wrong.
>>
>>     Then correct me, O wise one, what is the purpose of Social
>>Security?

     [Three messages follow]

     I don't see anything in those three messages that contradicts
what I said.  Minus the obligatory FDR-bashing (which reinforces
the idea that Bush's purpose is to demolish Social Security as we
know it), it provides some 70-year-old details of how the sausage
was made, but makes it clear that the purpose of Social Security 
was and is to provide a minimal amount of old-age assistance.  
(After all, the formal name is OASI...you might address the "S"
part as not fitting in my statement of purpose, and there you would
be right.)
    As far as the statement that "private accounts were part of the
original plan," this is as wrong (and deceptive) as the statement
that Congress has private accounts so why shouldn't the rest of us.
The "original plan" as cited was for private accounts separate from
Social Security and NOT FUNDED OUT OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY TAX. 
This is what Congress has, it is what the rest of us have today
(it's called savings), it is funded out of after-tax income (or if
you take advantage of IRAs and 401k's it is tax-deferred), and 
nobody proposes to take away the ability to save in private accounts
beyond and separate from Social Security...in fact I would like to
see the incentives for such savings increased.