San Francisco Chronicle: Why Skewer Dems?

San Francisco Chronicle: Why Skewer Dems?

The following letter from Leader Pelosi appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on February 17, 2005.

Editor -- President Bush has broadly outlined a proposal to privatize Social Security, but he still has not released a detailed plan. Yet columnist David Lazarus "Dems can't shrug off Social Security's woes," Feb. 13) excused the president and Republicans in Congress from the task of outlining specifics, while skewering Democrats for not doing the same.

While Social Security does face a long-term challenge, Lazarus ignores the fact that privatizing Social Security actually makes the problem worse by draining trillions of dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund.

The price tag for privatization is staggering. Private accounts would slash benefits by more than 40 percent for future retirees, and would add nearly $5 trillion in debt over the next 20 years. The Republican proposal would also impose a "privatization tax" that would, on average, effectively deduct 70 cents from a person's Social Security check for every dollar they had in their investment account.

Democrats believe that strengthening Social Security must begin with repaying the Social Security Trust Fund, just as President Clinton did in the 1990s. That step alone would do more for the future of Social Security than anything the president has proposed. By repaying the trust fund and by having an open, honest discussion about the benefits and trade-offs of any proposed changes, we can arrive at reasonable solutions for Social Security. To be sustainable, however, any solution must be bipartisan.

We urge the president to stop insisting on privatization and join with Democrats to strengthen, not undermine, Social Security.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi
House Democratic Leader
Washington

http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/articles.cfm?pressReleaseID=857