Not while I'm President

Seventy-five years ago today, in the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt signed Social Security into law, laying a cornerstone in the foundation of America’s middle class, and assuring generations of America’s seniors that after a lifetime of hard work, they’d have a chance to retire with dignity.

We have an obligation to keep that promise; to safeguard Social Security for our seniors, people with disabilities, and all Americans, today, tomorrow, and forever.

Now, we’ve been talking for a long time about how to do that, about how to make sure Social Security is healthy enough to cover the higher costs that are kicking in now that baby boomers are retiring, and I’m committed to working with anyone, Democrat or Republican, who wants to strengthen Social Security.

I’m also encouraged by the reports of serious bipartisan work being done on this and other issues in the fiscal commission that I set up several months ago.

One thing we can’t afford to do though is privatize Social Security, an ill-conceived idea that would add trillions of dollars to our budget deficit while tying your benefits to the whims of Wall Street traders and the ups and downs of the stock market.

A few years ago, we had a debate about privatizing Social Security, and I’d have thought that debate would’ve been put to rest once and for all by the financial crisis we’ve just experienced.

I’d have thought, after being reminded how quickly the stock market can tumble, after seeing the wealth people worked a lifetime to earn wiped out in a matter of days, that no one would want to place bets with Social Security on Wall Street, that everyone would understand why we need to be prudent about investing the retirement money of tens of millions of Americans.

But some Republican leaders in Congress don’t seem to have learned any lessons from the past few years.

They’re pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall.

It’s right up there on their to-do list with repealing some of the Medicare benefits and reforms that are adding at least a dozen years to the fiscal health of Medicare, the single longest extension in history.

That agenda is wrong for seniors, it’s wrong for America, and I won’t let it happen.

Not while I’m President.

I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stop those who would gamble your Social Security on Wall Street, because you shouldn’t be worried that a sudden downturn in the stock market will put all you’ve worked so hard for, all you’ve earned, at risk.

You should have the peace of mind of knowing that after meeting your responsibilities and paying into the system all your lives, you’ll get the benefits you deserve.

Seventy-five years ago today, Franklin Roosevelt made a promise. He promised that from that day forward, we’d offer, quote “some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against&hellippoverty-stricken old age.”

That’s a promise each generation of Americans has kept, and it’s a promise America will continue to keep so long as I have the honor of serving as President.
 
There are several major problems with the views about the effect of putting (at least some) of the social security fund in the private investment market.

First, the criticisms are based on short term analysis, while the SS Fund is, by definition, long term. If structured properly, the investment of SS funds on the private market would feel little, if any, long term effect from market downturns. This differs significantly from privately owned, individual investment portfolios, because the individual may not have the time to recoup losses from downturns before they need to stop contributing and start drawing on the funds. But SS fund will ALWAYS have contributions going in, and (again, if structured properly) will not even need to draw out more than is going in. No downturn in history has lasted more than a few years. The current downturn is less than 3 years old and has recovered about 50% from it's lowest point. Within a decade the DOW will be well over 15K, and with new investments made from each months FICA revenues, recover as much (if not more) as had the market risen slowly to 15K without the downturn.

Second, properly handled, investments can actually make money during downturns. People make bundles off the up AND down cycles of the investment market. Get a few of these people working for the SS fund and we could cut FICA taxes while increasing SS fund revenues significantly. For instance, say that 50% of the SS fund were invested in the market. It would have lost half its value when thing plummeted from 14K to 7K, but the fudn would have still been there, checks would still be cut. Meanwhile, not only would it have gained back much of the lost value since the bottom, but any new revenues from FICA taxes would have been invested while DOW was under 7K, and, as a result, those funds would have increased THEIR value over 50% just during the partial recovery we've seen so far in the market. The proof is in the long term analysis. Market returns AVERAGE over 10% per annum, INCLUDING DOWNTURNS. And, since the SS fund is a LONG TERM investment, it is the long term results, not the short term fluctuations, that determine its advisability. Add in dividend payments, and you get a very bright outlook for private investment of SS regardless of any short term downturns we may experience.

THIRD: Without investing in the private market, we have two choices: let it sit idle, or invest it in T-bills. Letting it sit idle, why not just tell people to stick their SS contributions under their mattress? But investing it in T-Bills is even worse, because revenues from T-Bills gets put in the general fund, where they are SPENT, leaving nothing in the SS fund coffers but a bunch of IOUs from Uncle Sam. And, in addition to that particular drawback, the interest from T-Bills is paid by other taxes. So we end up with our own taxes paying for the "investment" of our SS taxes. All in all, it is a very inefficient way of conserving the SS system, when efficiency is exactly what the SS system needs the most.
 
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