Social Security page Two
1. President Declares "Ownership Society"
2. U.S. Health Plans Include One With Catholic Tenets
3. Bush OKs Pension Aid to U.S. Companies
4. Bush’s “Privatized retirement” will bring $ 940 Billion to Wall Street
5. President Declares "Ownership Society" Tells Convention He's Ordered Invasion of Social Security Trust Fund
1. President Declares "Ownership Society"
Tells Convention He's Ordered Invasion of Social Security Trust Fund by Greg Palast
September 2, 2004 17:06
Of all the bone-headed, whacky, breathtakingly threatening schemes George W. Bush is trying to sell us in his acceptance speech tonight is something he and his handlers call, "the Ownership Society." Sounds cool, "ownership." Everyone gets a piece of the action. Everyone's a winner as the economy zooms. All boats rise.
Sure. Behind the hooray-for-free-enterprise crapola is that dog-eared game-plan to siphon off Social Security revenues to pay for making Bush's tax cuts for the rich permanent.
Here's what the President has in mind. Social Security is an insurance plan. You pay in, you get back. But it's hard to get your money back when there's a war where the Clinton surplus used to be. It's not the war on terror, or the war in Iraq, though Lord knows those have cost us a bundle with nothing to show for all the lost loot. I'm talking about the class war that Dubya and his Dick Cheney have waged on the average working person.
We're talking an economic Pearl Harbor here. While firemen and policemen went running into falling buildings, the Bushmen were preparing to relieve some gazillionaires, such as say, the Bush family, of the need to pay the taxes that the rest of us pay. Work as a teacher, you pay Social Security and income taxes on every darn penny. Sit on your yacht and speculate in the stock market casino and you are off the hook on taxes on the "capital gains."
Bill Clinton proposed putting his big surpluses into a Social Security "lock-box" for that predictable rainy day. But tonight, Bush instead proposes to give the stock-options class a boost by lopping off a chunk of Social Security insurance revenue for gambling in the stock market. He had this same idea in 2000. If he'd had his way on his inauguration day, the average "owner" in America, investing in the stock market, would be 7% poorer, many flat busted. Some "security." Happy elderly "owners" would be hunting for lunch in the garbage cans under Madison Square Garden.
Here's the latest report from the front lines of the class war: The World Bank reports the USA has more millionaires than ever -- we'll see them at the Garden tonight. Median household income's down -- most of us are median -- while the bottom has fallen out for those at the bottom. Our poorest 20% have seen incomes drop by a fifth. America's upper one percent now own 53% of all the shares in the market.
And now the uppers want to crack open your retirement piggy bank, cut some of your retirement benefits, then "allow" you to give them the remainder of your money to fund their latest stock float schemes.
If betting trillions on stock market ponies doesn't produce a big win,what does Mr. Bush propose to do with all the hungry old folk? I think I heard George say, "Let them eat Enron certificates." And the future market fall, Mr. President, is a slam-dunk certainty.
Let's do the math. OK, class, we all buy stock this afternoon to fund our retirement. In fifteen years, baby-boomers are ready to kick back, take it easy and retire on the stock they're about to sell. Did I say, "SELL"? And HOW. Around 2020, tens of millions of "owners" will be selling their shares . to whom? CRRRRASH!
A deliberate policy of aiming for another 1929 is appropriate for the top-hat and pinky-ring party of Herbert Hoover.
The big problem is that supposedly non-partisan and even Democratic poobahs are rushing to "reform" Social Security. We have Alan Greenspan, who has barely a word to say about the multi-trillion dollar deficit wrought by Mr. Bush's tax cuts, yet is already warning about some disaster in Social Security based on "trends." Well, if we go by his own trend, the Fed chief will soon be marrying a 12-year-old Girl Scout.
Hey, Alan, back to Economics 101 for you. As the boomers hit retirement age, we're going to need added borrowing for transfer payments like Social Security to maintain purchasing power to keep the economy alive while millions of old folk dump assets.
Listen, Mr. President, we had an "ownership" society once before.
Luckily, it came to an end when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Palast, nominated Britain's Business Writer of the Year by the UK
Press Association for his writings in the Guardian papers, is the
author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." This month, Palast, who has returned to his native USA, will release, "Bush Family Fortunes," the film based on his investigative reports for BBC television. Watch a preview of the film, out on DVD, at http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm Sign up for Palast's reports at http://www.gregpalast.com/contact.cfm
============================================
U.S. Health Plans Include One With Catholic Tenets
By MILT FREUDENHEIM
Published: September 25, 2004
The Bush administration has broken new ground in its "faith-based" initiative, this time by offering federal employees a Catholic health plan that specifically excludes payment for contraceptives, abortion, sterilization and artificial insemination.
The new plan, announced last week, combines two White House priorities. It is part of a $1 billion project seeking to involve religious organizations in all types of federal social programs. At the same time, the plan is a new form of coverage - a health savings account combined with high-deductible coverage - that is being promoted as a centerpiece of President Bush's health care policy.
The plan, which will begin enrolling federal workers in 31 Illinois counties in November, is sponsored by OSF Health, a unit of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, which runs the St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria and five Roman Catholic hospitals in Illinois and Michigan.
This is the first plan for federal workers "that has tailored its benefits in line with a set of tenets that are supported by the Catholic church," said Abby Block, a senior official in the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, the nation's largest purchaser of health insurance. It is also the first to be to marketed as "faith-based.''
Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said the Office of Personnel Management was one of a number of federal agencies, including the Housing and Urban Development, Justice and Agriculture Departments, that were directed to seek opportunities for faith-based programs.
"Over $1 billion has been made available to faith-based programs," he said. Faith-based organizations have, for example, been involved in job training and transitional services for former prisoners.
Ms. Block said that until now all federal employee benefit plans offered similar standard options and exclusions. Under a 1984 law, plans in the federal program are prohibited from covering abortions, except in cases involving rape, incest or danger to a woman's life. And while a 1999 law requires the plans to offer contraception coverage, Congress has repeatedly exempted insurance plans affiliated with Catholic organizations from that provision.
None of those restrictions, however, have been promoted as a way to appeal to a specific religious audience.
Kay Coles James, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, said last week that the new additions to federal employees' health benefits would "empower" workers to control their medical spending. Ms. James, a former spokeswoman for the National Right to Life Committee, which advocates anti-abortion policies, added that the program gave federal employees "more opportunities to make choices in the private sector."
But some critics expressed concern that this trend in health care might grow into a wider phenomenon. Is this "explicit denial" the first step in "denying federal employees a normal benefit that has been traditional for 30 years?" asked Philip R. Lee, a professor of social medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a former assistant secretary for health in the Clinton administration. "Is this simply the opening wedge?"
Four million federal workers across the country will have 249 choices of health plans for 2005. Those plans are sponsored by dozens of insurers, including Catholic health systems in Missouri, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin, as well as Illinois. Federal workers in Illinois can, of course, still select a health plan that does not have religious-based restrictions. But the OSF plan will be the only health savings account plan available to them.
The Bush administration has promoted health savings account plans as a way to hold down costs, give consumers greater control of health spending and increase personal savings.
The OSF plan has two parts. It couples a tax-free savings account for enrollees to use to pay for routine care with a high-deductible health plan that offers coverage only after the annual deductible has been reached - $1,050 for individual or $2,100 for family coverage. As part of the benefit, a portion of the premium that the government will pay to OSF will be deposited into each enrollee's savings account.
The government's total contribution to the new OSF plan will be $240.89 a month for individuals and $599 a month for families. The employees' monthly premium contribution will be $80.30 for individuals and $199.66 for families. By comparison, federal workers enrolling in a more traditional preferred provider plan in Illinois will pay $89.09 for individuals and $299.96 for families.
U.S. Health Plans Include One With Catholic Tenets
The federal program will announce the amount of the health savings account allotments late next month. Employees will be allowed to make pretax contributions of their own into their accounts, but the total in each account each year may not exceed the deductibles.
Ms. Block said that the reproductive- care exclusions in the OSF plan would be explained in brochures distributed to federal workers in Illinois when they choose their coverage for 2005 in November.
The vast majority of health plans sponsored by private employers now pay for various types of contraceptives prescribed by a doctor, according to surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization that studies reproductive rights and care.
Currently, 23 states require contraceptive coverage, although 14 states provide for an exemption for employers or insurers that object on religious grounds.
A number of Catholic health plans have covered reproductive services including contraception; vasectomies; tubal ligation, which prevents pregnancy; and sometimes abortion, often under Medicaid laws and typically through a non-Catholic partner like a Blue Cross plan.
Indeed, members of other OSF Health plans in Peoria, including one with 4,067 federal employees, have access to contraceptive coverage, although not abortion coverage, through a separate third-party payer.
In line with the administration's policy of encouraging faith-based organizations, however, the new OSF health savings account plan will not cover contraceptives. But because the money in the savings account itself is controlled by the enrolled member, the member could use the account to pay for an abortion or for contraceptives, according to federal officials.
An abortion costs about $375 in Peoria, Ill.; the morning-after contraceptive pill, including the visit to a clinic, costs about $70 at the local Planned Parenthood office, said Joyce Harant, the organization's regional president.
Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent organization of Catholics who support reproductive choices, criticized the inclusion of a plan with such restrictions in the federal program.
"I don't think substandard medical care should be offered through the federal government," she said.
Although many health plans do not cover abortion, Ms. Kissling said, "when it comes to contraceptives, assisted reproduction and voluntary sterilization, these services are generally covered within our society.''
"These are services that federal employees need," she added.
The level of disclosure of the restrictions also remains a concern for critics. "A lot of these religious restrictions do reduce access to health care, and people don't even know about it," said Elena Cohen, a senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center in Washington.
Representative Pete Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a telephone interview: "Medical care is a science. Getting medical care and religion mixed together is just as bad as getting church and state mixed together."
But Jeff Koch, a spokesman for OSF Health, said that it was "a good thing for federal employees to have the option" of a plan that would adhere to Catholic Church policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/business/25care.html?th
Bush OKs
Pension Aid to U.S. Companies
4/10/2004
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush
signed into law on Saturday a measure aimed at saving U.S. companies more than
$80
billion
in pension contributions over two years, days before many firms make quarterly
payments.
Businesses lobbied hard for the bill, which
would provide about $80 billion in pension accounting relief through the end of
2005 for some 31,000 companies with traditional "defined benefit" pension plans.
Those cover about 35 million workers and promise a specific payout based on
salary and service.
Many traditional pension plans are under
funded because of the weak stock market the last few years and current low
interest rates, and companies are struggling to keep up with the payments as
profits have shrunk in part because of the struggling economy.
The relief comes from replacing a formula
for calculating pension contributions. None of the aid comes from government
payments.
The law goes into effect in time for the
next round of payments, set for Thursday, and is intended as a temporary measure
to help keep plans afloat while Congress works on longer-term pension reform.
There would also be
$1.6 billion
in extra relief through waivers of payments for a handful of steel companies and
major U.S. commercial airlines particularly hard hit in recent years, such as
bankrupt United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp. <UALAQ.OB These companies would
receive waivers for payments.
Some Democrats were angered by the
legislation because it contained little help for plans sponsored by more than
one employer, which cover mostly union workers like in the construction and
trucking industries.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward
Kennedy said less than 4 percent of the 1,600 multi-employer plans, which cover
more than 9 million workers, now qualify for help.
© Copyright 2004 Reuters. Reuters content
is the intellectual property of Reuters or its third-party content providers.
Any copying, republication, or redistribution of Reuters content, including by
caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior
written consent of Reuters.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/04/10/bush_oks_pension_aid_to_us_companies/
Bush’s “Privatized
retirement” will bring $ 940 Billion to Wall Street
The Politics of Social Security
Kerry to Use Study to Call Bush Plan a Wall
Street Windfall
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington
Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 22,
2004; Page A02
President Bush's push to create individual
investment accounts in the Social Security system would hand financial services
firms a windfall totaling $940 billion over 75 years, according to a University
of Chicago study to be released today.
Sen. John F. Kerry plans to use the paper,
by economist Austan Goolsbee, as he campaigns in Florida today, hoping to open a
new line of attack against Bush. The Democratic presidential nominee is expected
to say that Bush's Social Security plan is a sop to Wall Street donors, who are
among the Bush campaign's biggest financial backers.
Bush has expressed strong support for
allowing workers to divert some of their Social Security taxes to accounts that
could be invested in stocks and bonds. But he has never embraced a specific
proposal to revamp Social Security, even after his own Social Security
Commission presented him with three reform options. Goolsbee, an informal Kerry
economic adviser, examined the option that is often cited as the most realistic.
Under that plan, workers could invest as
much as 2.5 percent of their earnings -- or about 40 percent of their share of
Social Security taxes -- in private accounts, which Goolsbee anticipates would
be managed by private investment firms once their balances reach $5,000. He
estimated that annual management fees would be 0.8 percent, a conservative
figure, he said, considering that management fees across the spectrum of mutual
funds average 1.09 percent.
The result: Over 75 years, fees would total
$940 billion, more than a quarter of the $3.7 trillion deficit the Social
Security system will run over that time period. That would be the largest
windfall in U.S.
financial history, Goolsbee said, more than eight times the revenue loss that
Wall Street suffered during the 2000-02 stock market collapse.
Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush
campaign, called the analysis "a Kerry campaign pseudo-study" and "an attempt to
divert attention from the fact that John Kerry does not have a plan to
strengthen Social Security."
Financial and insurance industry officials
have donated $20.7 million to Republicans this campaign season, compared with
$11.4 million they have given Democrats, according to the nonpartisan Political
Moneyline.com. But Kerry has showcased his support from executives to bolster
his contention that his fiscal policies would ease market anxieties over record
budget deficits.
Still, the Kerry campaign's economic policy
director, Jason Furman, said the candidate would not hesitate to link Bush's
Social Security position to his donor base.
"This study makes it clear when you choose
individual accounts, seniors get hurt, the economy gets hurt, and the only
institutions that benefit are the financial institutions that get nearly a
trillion dollars in additional revenues," Furman said.
Michael Tanner, a Cato Institute analyst
who has pushed for individual accounts, said Goolsbee's administrative cost
estimate is slightly higher than Cato's, which put management fees at as much as
0.65 percent, but "not unrealistic."
White House officials questioned why
Goolsbee assumes management of the accounts would shift from the federal
government to private fund managers. Bush's Social Security Commission suggested
that shift could happen but did not mandate it.
The windfall to Wall Street is unavoidable,
Tanner said. "The question is whether we're giving young workers more of a
return [on investment] than they'll be getting today."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39923-2004Sep21.html
President Declares
"Ownership Society"
Tells Convention He's Ordered Invasion of Social Security Trust Fund
by Greg Palast
September 2, 2004
17:06
[New
York] Of all the bone-headed, whacky,
breathtakingly threatening schemes George W. Bush is trying to sell us in his
acceptance speech tonight is something he and his handlers call, "the Ownership
Society." Sounds cool, "ownership." Everyone gets a piece of the action.
Everyone's a winner as the economy zooms. All boats rise.
Sure. Behind the
hooray-for-free-enterprise crapola is that dog-eared game-plan to siphon off
Social Security revenues to pay for making Bush's tax cuts for the rich
permanent.
Here's what the President has in mind.
Social Security is an insurance plan. You pay in, you get back. But it's hard
to get your money back when there's a war where the Clinton
surplus used to be. It's not the war on terror, or the war in Iraq, though Lord
knows those have cost us a bundle with nothing to show for all the lost loot.
I'm talking about the class war that Dubya and his Dick Cheney have waged on the
average working person.
We're talking an economic Pearl Harbor
here. While firemen and policemen went running into falling buildings, the
Bushmen were preparing to relieve some gazillionaires, such as say, the Bush
family, of the need to pay the taxes that the rest of us pay. Work as a
teacher, you pay Social Security and income taxes on every darn penny. Sit on
your yacht and speculate in the stock market casino and you are off the hook on
taxes on the "capital gains."
Bill Clinton proposed putting his big
surpluses into a Social Security "lock-box" for that predictable rainy day. But
tonight, Bush instead proposes to give the stock-options class a boost by
lopping off a chunk of Social Security insurance revenue for gambling in the
stock market. He had this same idea in 2000. If he'd had his way on his
inauguration day, the average "owner" in America,
investing in the stock market, would be 7% poorer, many flat busted. Some
"security." Happy elderly "owners" would be hunting for lunch in the garbage
cans under Madison Square Garden.
Here's the latest report from the front
lines of the class war: The World Bank reports the USA
has more millionaires than ever -- we'll see them at the Garden tonight. Median
household income's down -- most of us are median -- while the bottom has fallen
out for those at the bottom. Our poorest 20% have seen incomes drop by a fifth.
America's
upper one percent now own 53% of all the shares in the market.
And now the uppers want to crack open your
retirement piggy bank, cut some of your retirement benefits, then "allow" you to
give them the
remainder of your money to fund their
latest stock float schemes. If betting trillions on stock market ponies doesn't
produce a big win, what does Mr. Bush propose to do with all the hungry old
folk? I think I heard George say, "Let them eat Enron certificates."
And the future market fall, Mr. President,
is a slam-dunk certainty.
Let's do the math. OK, class, we all buy
stock this afternoon to fund our retirement. In fifteen years, baby-boomers are
ready to kick back, take it easy and retire on the stock they're about to sell.
Did I say, "SELL"? And HOW. Around 2020, tens of millions of "owners" will be
selling their shares, to whom? CRRRRASH!
A deliberate policy of aiming for another
1929 is appropriate for the top-hat and pinky-ring party of Herbert Hoover.
The big problem is that supposedly
non-partisan and even Democratic poobahs are rushing to "reform" Social
Security. We have Alan Greenspan, who has barely a word to say about the
multi-trillion dollar deficit wrought by Mr. Bush's tax cuts, yet is already
warning about some disaster in Social Security based on "trends." Well, if we
go by his own trend, the Fed chief will soon be marrying a 12-year-old Girl
Scout.
Hey, Alan, back to Economics 101 for you.
As the boomers hit retirement age, we're going to need added borrowing for
transfer payments like Social Security to maintain purchasing power to keep the
economy alive while millions of old folk dump assets.
Listen, Mr. President, we had an
"ownership" society once before.
Luckily, it came to an end when Abraham
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
****
Greg Palast, nominated Britain's Business Writer of the Year by the UK
Press Association for his writings in the
Guardian papers, is the
author of the New York Times bestseller,
"The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." This month, Palast, who has returned to his
native USA, will
release, "Bush Family Fortunes," the film based on his investigative reports for
BBC television. Watch a preview of the film, out on DVD, at
http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm
Sign up for Palast's reports at http://www.gregpalast.com/contact.cfm