BUSH: One other point on Social Security that people have got to understand is that the system of today is not fair for a person whose spouse has died early.

In other words, if you’re a two-working family, like a lot of families are here in America, and two people working in your family, and the spouse dies early — before age 62 for example, then when the other spouse retires, he or she gets to choose the benefits from his or her own work or the other spouse’s benefits,,,,,but not both.

See what I’m saying? Somebody who’s worked all their life, the money they put into the system just goes away. It seems unfair to me.

Does George not understand that Social Security has more in common with an insurance policy, than it does a bank account? How about the person who dies and leaves a wife a children who have never worked? Those people receive survivor benefits but only the worker and the worker’s employer have paid in. That might not be fair in the GOP’s opinion, but the system is doing what it was intended to do……give them an entitlement safety net. Of course, during the 2000 campaigne George riduculed Al Gore for thinking that Social Security is a Federal Program.

So, the GOP mentality is that it should be a savings bank, and that one worker with his/her own social security should be able to draw a second social security check of another worker. I’m not sure THAT sounds fair.

Here is something that is not being discussed but it should be. Dr. David G Bronner, head of the Retirement Systems of Alabama presented an idea in an editoral entitled Social Security –Part II which appeared in the April Edition of the RSA Advisor.

Bronner, who transformed the Alabama Retirement system into a money making machine recommeds two major changes in social security. First he says to raise the $90,000 cap on the Social Security tax. Let the wealthy pay the same flat rate as the working stiff.

Second, if the GOP wants a market based retirement account, then let them do with social security taxes as Alabama has done with the state retirement dollars and invest in the ecomony. Bronner’s proposal would have professional money managers investing social security taxes in stocks, bonds, real estate etc. and getting a return of 200 to 400 percent more than simply buying treasury bonds. This is the way Bronner has been doing business with Alabama’s retirement fund, and his system has saved the state of Alabama millions upon millions of dollars and rescued a retirement system that was on the verge of not being able to pay promised benefits.

Bronner argues that with Social Security invested in the economy, you would do away with automatic cost of living raises and make adjustments on an adhoc basis. When the fund is doing well, you increase benefits, and when it is doing less well you don’t.

Why not take a look at this solution, George?? You might actually earn so much money that you could REDUCE TAXES and then your buddies could put THAT MONEY into individual retirement accounts.

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