On May 10, a federal court announced United Airlines could pocket $3.2 billion of the contributions owed to its 134,000 workers’ pension plans, and turn over its four pensions to the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The move will leave the PBGC saddled with $9.8 billion in total pension liabilities from United, making it the largest bailout of a private… return to article
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Reader Comments (36)Page 1 of 1 pagesThe GOP => Government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.
Once again, my declamation, that there are only two kinds of conservatives: 1) idiots, and 2) crooks, proves to be true.
Posted by Lefty on Jun 6, 2005 at 1:31 PM Seems like a good argument for President Bush’s plan for private accounts inside of social security. When expenses exceed revenues you are in deep trouble. Most businesses don’t have the luxury of government bailouts.
I want to know I have my own investment accounts to help make me a happy old person.
Posted by U Scare Me on Jun 6, 2005 at 2:10 PM The free market cares for all.
Those not covered can just die.
Posted by Liberal AND Proud on Jun 6, 2005 at 3:10 PM UScareMe,
Not everyone has the luxury of having surplus income to invest. I do, and I, too, have invested. I do know I wouldn’t have been able to finish college after my dad dies if not for Social Security. Bush’s plan would cut back those benefits.
The bottom line is that when you pay into a retirement pension, it should be there for you when you retire. Not in the pockets of the CEO’s and the shareholders. And when enough companies default on their pensions, I can’t believe you’re so naive as to think that wouldn’t impact the stock market. Then we can lose all the way around.
Thank God above, the majority of Americans and Congress are deeply opposed to this foolish plan.
Posted by Margaret on Jun 6, 2005 at 4:29 PM Margaret,
I was not referring to surplus income to invest. I was referring to a plan where workers can “CHOOSE” to have a small percentage of their Social Security invested in a personal account that is 100% theirs when the retire. They also pass it along to their children when they die. This would have been very helpful to you when your dad passed.
If you take everything the CEO/CEO’s at United have been paid, it would be a drop in the bucket relative to the pension plan. Their service sucks, their labor cost is out of control (from top down), fuel costs are up and revenues are down. They are going broke and government bailouts are only delaying the inevitable.
Believe it or not, these problems were put into motion long before Bush came into office. This is why the PBGC was formed in 1974. Here is what happens Margaret. When you have a company that by contract forces you to pay $20 per hour and I have a competing company that can get the same job done for $10 per hour, guess who goes broke. United Airlines vs Southwest Airlines. Sad, but it happens which is why we have the PBGC.
You had better hope private accounts don’t pass because if Americans can have a good retirement and be less dependent on the Federal Government your party is forever destined to the bust bin. If you loose the ability to scare senior citizens, it’s over.
Posted by U Scare Me on Jun 6, 2005 at 6:38 PM We are not scaring seniors, they are just too smart to listen to the Right’s lies. And your party will soon be on the way to the dustbin when the general public cries out for this moron’s impeachment, as he has already committed “high crimes” worthy of impeachment.
Face it, USM, your party has already lost the Social Security issue.
Posted by Margaret on Jun 6, 2005 at 6:45 PM Margaret,
It is so sad that the Liberal desire to regain power is so desperate that they will try and kill a program that could positively benefit so many Americans. I just wish Clinton had not been so busy trying to build a legacy out of his impeached presidency that he might have thought of the idea so you’d have supported it.
Posted by U Scare Me on Jun 6, 2005 at 7:14 PM LIBERAL DNC SUPPORTERS ARE SO STUPID.
When the GOP acts in favor of the rich, and against the rest of us the liberals scream and yell. But when the DEMS cut welfare and gave us NAFTA they can’t bring themselves to get how that party is just as pro-rich as the GOP. The majority of DEMS in congress favored the Iraq war, and the patriot act and today call for more troops there. The DEM party held the most pro-militarist, jingoistic, ultra-patriotic national convention I’ve ever seen. And the STUPID liberals in the anti-war movement didn’t see it necessary to protest there.
Bush won’t destroy Social Security. The next DEMOCRATIC president will be the one to destroy it. Just like the GOP lambasted welfare and a Deomcrat destroyed it, likewise the GOP will attack SS and a Democrat will destroy it. That’s the game. I HATE the DEM party. Their leaders always talk the good talk but they are scumbags. I suggest the liberal supporters of the DNC to wake up and smell the roses. THe DEM party is a BIG BUSINESS party and their leaders are a bunch of two-faced lying fucks.
Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on Jun 6, 2005 at 7:33 PM Please don’t use that language online, Max. It really isn’t necessary.
I’m madder than heck that Ken Mehlman just lied like no tomorrow on “Face the Nation” this week, attempting to discredit the Downing Street memos. Even Tim Russert said that he thought Mr. Mehlman’s statments were incorrect, which was pretty surprising for him to do. Despite that anger, it isn’t necessary for me to name-call and swear. “Let your yea be yea, and your ney be ney.”
I think you are absolutely incorrect about Dems destroying SS. They created it and the prosperity that followed. All that must be done to correct SS is to eliminate 1/5th of the tax cuts to the rich which Bush is trying to make permanent. That would cover the deficit and keep SS into the next century.
USM is full of it. It is a good sign that Republicans are writhing and cussing online, it shows we’re on the right track. Fight on, Progressives!
Posted by Margaret on Jun 6, 2005 at 11:11 PM If I had money in the stock market over the past 5 years, I would not have made ANY growth to help me through retirement. Yet, Since I am under 55, if this plan were to pass as YOUR administration wants, I would not gain anything from investing, yet my benefits would be cut.
I am one of the unlucky ones who has had very little money to invest, AND have worked hard all my life.
Taking away a promise is not good policy,but then again, this administration was supposed to be compassionate and they long ago broke that promise.
Posted by Robin on Jun 7, 2005 at 12:29 AM Margaret,
The only “cussing” I see is from liberals unless of course you are saying Mad Max is Republican. I’m also glad to see you are encouraging debate rather than whining to the Webmaster about limiting debate to only you. Good Job!Robin,
I too have money invested in the stock market and although my last 5 year returns have been somewhat lower than previous periods, I’ve still made money. The proposed plan would limit where you can invest, much like a 401K. A retirement plan is not based on a 5 year window and any analysis of the plan based on a five year window is not accurate. Cutting benefits has not been proposed, that is liberal banter. Adding additional tax burden on the wealthy to fund Social Security is liberal speak for redistribution of wealth and class warfare.
If there is a plan that does not cut benefits and allows you and other Americans to have a better retirement, would you support it. I think I know your answer…Not if Bush recommends it.It is very sad to see people killing a program that could allow so many Americans to have a better life simply for the purpose of regaining power in government.
Posted by U Scare Me on Jun 7, 2005 at 11:28 AM when the priveliged in a society refuse to support
the social burdens of the society, it ceases to be civilized….there is enough wealth in the united states to support social security, health care, and infrastructure… only propblem is, the powerful and the privileged have ceased to be civilized…..
Posted by ted on Jun 7, 2005 at 2:35 PM USM,
Since when is the “F” word not cussing? As usual, you are basing your precepts on a non-reality based worldview.
Posted by Margaret on Jun 7, 2005 at 4:22 PM All those who think the SS problem has anything to do with its solvency are wrong. The destruction of SS has nothing to do with SS “going bankrupt.” That would be like saying the reason people go hungry is because there isn’t enough food being produced, or the reason people are poor is because there isn’t enough wealth on earth. There’s more than enough means to save SS, just as there’s more than enough food and wealth on earth for every human to live a decent life. The problem is not the needs of the majority but the profits of the ruling class. SS is indeed a load, a burden on the rulers. It is indeed a portion of the wages/salary they pay to workers which is then used to keep them free of misery in their old age. But to the bourgeoisie, workers are useless when they’re old. SO why pay them that portion of their wages? The simple solution is to cut it off, and reap more profits.
Crises in capitalism are not the result of scarcity. In fact the problem is always excess supply. And the world market is glutted, has been for 30 years. Big agri-business firms would much rather throw food away (or not produce food to thier full capacity) than give it freely to the hungry. That would undermine the price of food. That’s why SS must be gutted. That’s why the rulers of every country are getting rid of the burdens on their profits: state monopolies, welfare programs, and SS. If this were a uniquely American phenomenon, then the liberals would have a point.
A DEM president is more likely to do this simply because DEM presidents get less resistance from the liberals of America when they do these things (just look at the Clinton years). Likewise it was the socialists in France and Germany and the Labourites in the UK that could be used with the least resistance to weaken the welfare states there. When SS is destroyed by the next DEM in the white house, remember “mad” Max.
Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on Jun 7, 2005 at 4:27 PM This is a very good discussion board. I feel social security could be around a long time if you moved some of the defense budget which our country seems to be in love with. We spend ($455 Billion Dolars in 2004), thats $111 Billion dollars more than the next 14 nations combined. We beat the Soviets by bankrupting them and now we’re doing the same thing to ourselves. Russia and China together spend only $54 Billion dollars. No wonder we can’t afford to pay our retirees.
Posted by Marine retired on Jun 7, 2005 at 5:05 PM Marine,
Here is a conspiracy theory for you. Do you think the bigger plan IS to bankrupt the government, thereby providing the excuse that we can not afford any of these “entitlement” programs?
Of course, we NEED a strong military, because we have to defend our freedom to work for minimum wage so we can fill our tanks with gas to go to our minimum wage jobs and pay for our health insurance so big business gets wealthier and keeps our country “strong”?Just a theory!
Posted by Robin on Jun 7, 2005 at 5:10 PM Robin
I don’t think your theory is far off. Check out Smedley Butler. He was a Marine General in the 30’s who said it like it is. His resume is pretty impressive.
Posted by Marine on Jun 7, 2005 at 5:17 PM Max,
You crack me up!
With Democrat Clinton we had a massive budget surplus because he determined it was absolutely in the best interest of the USA to attack the budget deficit left him by prior Republican administrations. He did it in spades.
Then he tried to pass a national health plan to eliminate the burdon on our budget and the strain on corporations/business owners in providing health care to the people. A Republican Congress shot that down. Now we have outsourcing up the yin-yang in largest part because the captains of industry say they can’t compete because of the health care crisis.
Since FDR, Democrats have been the ones to provide for the working man. Read the following link written by FDR defining his motivation for SS.
<www.commondreams.org/view05/0506-33.htm>
Also, a fine warrior and Republicans named Dwight Eisenhower once said:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54
Let’s all take President Eisenhower’s advice and kick these “stupid” neocons out the door ASAP!
Posted by Margaret on Jun 7, 2005 at 6:27 PM Good discussion, guys. At our mid-fifties, both my husband and I are worried that we will be in the ditch, along with our neighbors by retirement time. Corporate America and Big Business have abdicated their responsibilities. Period.
Posted by Beth on Jun 7, 2005 at 6:59 PM Same thing happened in the UK. Firms allowed to stop paying in to employee pension fund. Gaff was blown by suicide of Robert Maxwell and revelation of how he had milked his employees’ pension fund. Now it is said that firms “can’t afford” pensions and there are “too few workers” to support old people in retirement. Maximilian is right. We shouldn’t take the whingeing of the rich at face value. If the bulk of the nation’s wealth goes in profits and speculation rather than to workers, of course it will be hard to get cash for pensions - why not tax where the money is?
Posted by Diana E Forrest on Jun 7, 2005 at 10:04 PM Diana,
Yes, we should tax “where the money is”. But Max is dead wrong about who’s doing the raping here,it’s not the Democrats. Not claiming they’re perfect, far from it, but not as greedy, selfish and aggressive as the neocon Republicans and their Libertarian lapdogs (or is it the other way around?).
Posted by Margaret on Jun 7, 2005 at 10:49 PM Margaret,
Whereas in most cases I tend to side with your positions, I must take exception of your defence of either Clinton.
Upon his election there existed an opportunity to reverse much of the damage rendered under Dutch and George the Elder. There could have been a move to reinstate the fairness doctrine. Instead he gave us the Telecommunications Act of 1996. There could have been an intelligent effort to assist in the transition of the former Soviet Bloc countries instead of allowing the savage chaotic disintegration that occurred. He should have actually followed through on his campaign promise of rebuilding America’s infrastructure and not expedited its demise through instruments such as NAFTA, GATT, WTO. The welfare reform passed on his watch would never have been passed under Old Dutch ten years earlier. Health plan? Clinton never had a plan. Paul Tsongas did. For a full year prior to the New Hampshire primary he distributed copies to anyone interested. His campaign was thought to be a joke. The money was behind Slick and of course, everyone remembers the famous speech of his about the ‘come back kid’. Yet, it was Tsongas who won the primary! Only after that defeat did Clinton attempt to co-opt the health care issue. Inattentive voters bought it and managed to doom the US to two terms of Republican surrogacy DLC style with no intention of ever realistically dealing with health care.I can go on.
Unfortunately, Max is correct regarding the current condition of the Democratic Party. Why aren’t they hollering for Ken Lay’s head? Is it possible that they too were paid off? Where is their outrage over GITMO? Why is the Patriot Act still around? Why do they continue to approve billions for the misadventure in Iraq? Why…
Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the system. I believe it is possible to achieve positive change—-I have seen it happen many times through the course of my lifetime. However, I am sceptical of the sincerity and motivations of those claiming to be ‘New Democrats’ and followers of DLC doctrine. Until we recognize them for who they are, we are going to continue to maintain the status quo regardless of what party wins.
—-Hempshackle
Posted by BQ Hempshackle on Jun 8, 2005 at 6:21 AM Marine retired and Robin—
Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. ”
Posted by passingitalong on Jun 8, 2005 at 6:34 AM Passingitalong
Thanks for the excerpt. A postscript on Gen. Butler, he was awarded two Congressional Medals Of Honor for heroism in combat.
Posted by Marine on Jun 8, 2005 at 2:07 PM I am well aware of the oft used Butler quote; a favorite of revisionist historians and a great one at that! Yet this discussion is supposed to center on retirement and pensions! In regard to this I think Jack Rasmus is once again on the mark! The Bush proposals for big corporations who can no longer meet their pension obligations is to dump them on the Federal Government to save money and encourage more money to flow to the stock market in the form of 401k investment (whereas most older defined benefit plans were invested in far more stable instruments like municiple and other treasury bonds). It is suprising to me that a collective deficit in the countries private defined benefit plans can range from $280 billion to over half a trillion while financial markets have taken over the economy in the last twenty five years. Finance has gone from being about 10% of the US GDP in the 1960s to about 25% by the mid-1980s. Today it is probably over 50% and rising. The expansion of finance and wealth should have stabilized the financial markets and the funds that rely on them not created deficits and higher risk! What seems to be behind the collapse of the old defined benefit pension system is shift of income from the poor to the rich. Billions will be diverted to financial speculation at the expense of the retirement incomes aging workers whose purchasing power is no longer key to corporate profitability the way it was 40 years ago. Now it is possible to concentrate income quickly through the globalized financial system which grows in lockstep with the increasing concentration of income upward. Thus are created stock market and upscale real estate bubbles which further drive the frenzied “casino economy” which J.M.Keynes long ago warned would emerge in the era of finance capital. As the median income in the US and other advanced capitalist countries continues its gradual descent, the crisis of finance capitalism will intensify. This is the same finance capitalism which posed as a solution to the falling rate of profit of industrial capitalism over 30 years ago. It will become crisis ridden by virtue of the very same kind of shrinking overall demand and costly idle industrial overcapacity that led to the permanent stagnation crises in the capitalist world for the last three decades.
Posted by steve on Jun 8, 2005 at 3:43 PM C’mon, who has done more harm? Sure as heck not Bill Clinton. Was he perfect? No, but at least he hasn’t hacked our country to death like Bush.
Also, with the Conservatives controling the press, it’s harder than heck to get anything going out there. Why has it taken this long for people to become aware of the Downing Street memo? The press.
So, defend Bill, I will. If for no other reason than he’s not the dumb hack that Bush is.
Posted by Margaret on Jun 8, 2005 at 3:52 PM Steve,
Need you be reminded of the machinations of Sullivan & Cromwell; the Dulles brothers; the Harrimans; Brown, Wood, Ivey, Mitchell & Petty; not to mention earlier generations of Bush and Walkers? Seems General Butlers comments are of relevance to the discussion today. If we weren’t pumping billions into an insane quest for global hegemony there might be funds available to accommodates our needs at home.
Incidentally, my father served in the pre-WWII military, making the world safe for United Fruit and company. His observations parallel the good general’s.
Posted by passingitalong on Jun 8, 2005 at 4:02 PM What does any of this stuff have to do with Clinton? I was talking about the general tendency of late monopoly capitalism towards stagnation. In the 1950s and 60s, the overall average profit rate in US industry was 7-8%. Labor productivity was high and average annual economic growth was 4.5 to 5%. In Japan and Germany all these figures were far higher (the UK was, however, slowing down greatly). By the 1970s and 80s the slowdown brought growth and profits down to less than half their former levels. This was no doubt due to a crisis of overaccumulation of fixed industrial capital brought about by the universal competition in the massive overproduction of consumer durables, particularly automobiles. Slackening demand didn’t result in lower prices to clear markets but a cut back in costly over capacity and hence employment which further deepened the recession and stagnation. The restructuring of capital on a global basis which further concentrated income and recast a more concentrated global division of labor based on the new hyper-mobility of capital and sweatshop production in the third world led to frenetic financialization to fund the new highly concentrated and centralized global accumulation process. Yet this to will become crisis prone as it does not comprise a new expansive wave of capitalist development despite its base in new high tech information and telecommunication industries. Corporations cast about looking for ways to keep up economic growth, which is always recession prone, sometimes engaging the military-industrial complex (our military budget is 50% of all global military spending and the US is more than 75% of the global arms trade) sometimes using expanded consumer credit to pump prime demand as in the 1990s. Both entail terrific risks! Neither has been successful. Stagnation is still more the norm than growth despite high profits at times in some industries. I believe that the next “long wave” of capitalist expansion will consist of very dangerous exogenous sources like a catastrophic global conflagration or a mass epidemic that wipes out millions the world over and requires much rebuiding.
Posted by steve on Jun 8, 2005 at 4:25 PM Passingitalong,
What in my comments doesn’t sound like I agree with you and the late General Butler on the issue of US imperialism? It should be clear to all that I am wholly in sympathy with your views on that score!
Posted by steve on Jun 8, 2005 at 4:33 PM Steve
Phew, I guess I opened a can of worms. I think I agree with most of what you say, but I have to keep interrupting my reading to refer to my dictionary. Good information.
Posted by Marine on Jun 8, 2005 at 4:37 PM I took ‘revisionist historians’ in a negative sense and inappropriately assumed the second half of the sentence was intended as sarcasm. I apologize.
Given the convolutions of Jack Barnes and his ilk, one sometimes slips the hair trigger and jumps to erroneous conclusions. Once again, apologies!
Posted by passingitalong on Jun 8, 2005 at 7:41 PM It seems as plain as day, and has since Reagan, that these Republicans care only about the very rich and only want to reduce government into something bankrupt enough to be owned by the very rich. What continues to blow my mind as the years go by, and now corporations are given a green light to dump their pension plans that only help regular people who don’t matter, is that regular Americans can’t see what’s in front of their faces. This Administration has done nothing but swindle America, and I don’t want to wait till America is a bankrupt wage-slaving 3rd world banana republic nestled in some New World Order to say I told you so.
Posted by Davol on Jun 8, 2005 at 8:13 PM > Since when is the “F” word not cussing?
Since Vice President Dick Cheney, presiding over the Senate, told another senator to “Go Fuck Yourself.
RICHARD
Posted by Richard Stark on Jun 9, 2005 at 9:25 AM U Scare, you wrote, “Believe it or not, these problems were put into motion long before Bush came into office. This is why the PBGC was formed in 1974.”
What you ignore is that the PPGC was not deep in the red years ago as it is now. It was established mainly as a safety net for the employees whose companies they worked for merged, downsized or simply went bankrupt. Now, the PBGC is being exploited by big corporations mainly as a routine and disingenuous policy to dump the added costs of employee pension and health benefits onto the taxpayers.One of the biggest bankruptcies prior to United’s was U.S. Steel which successfully convinced the corporate-friendly courts to allow them to do away with their worker health and pension plans.
You also ignore the truth that Social Security pays out benefits based on the cost of wages, has an automatic cost of living adjustment (2.7% last year) and that the trust fund is invested in government securities that pay interest higher than current bank savings accounts. These are the same government securities that Bush and his Fed Chief, Alan Greenspan, are promising foreign investors who last year alone contributed to Bush’s borrow and spend spree to the tune of $650 billion trade deficit, all money that earns the same interest as the government securities invested in the Social Security trust fund.
You also seem to forget that each time you increase the deficit of a government program like the PBGC it is money which at some point the taxpayers ultimately will have to pony up. If you look at another government program, the toxic and pollutant cleanup Superfund, for example, that was funded at one time by fines and penalties against those companies who violated environmental laws, essentially forcing them to comply with clean air and water regulations. Now, thanks to Bush and his corporate-friendly courts, the taxpayer must pay for the cost of the cleanup. This gives the offending corporations the green light that they can now pollute with impunity while the taxpayers get stuck with the tab.
No question, there are many programs in deep financial straits including Medicare and Social Security. But shelling out unaccounted for hundreds of billions to fund Bush’s war missteps seems to be conveniently brushed aside, pretending that it doesn’t exist. In spite of another huge annual budget deficit of $350 billion, Bush and his rubber stamp Republican-controlled U.S. Congress continue to routinely include the approximately $100 billion per year war costs in a supplemental spending bill not included in the overall deficit. More smoke and mirror.
Quoting from the conservatives’ own bible of authenticity, the Wall Street Journal, the stock market actually lost ground from 2000 to 2002. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 17% in 2002, 7% in 2001 and 6% in 2000. These figures are cited from Jim Jubak in his column Jubak’s Journal who also appears on CNBC’s Business Center. While inflation is low, officially running at 3.2% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those who want to take a chance putting their money in the stock market certainly can see the differences between possible investment gains and the guaranteed benefits of Social Security trust funds.
Social Security is an absolute guarantee and an insurance policy that over half of retirees depend upon for over half of their income.
Let me offer one of the ways to make this guarantee fulfill the promise for which it was intended: Repeal, rescind or scale back the $1.35 trillion tax cut giveaway for the wealthiest 1% of the population. I’m sure there are other, more creative and responsible ways to keep Social Security solvent. Private accounts may be one, but it sure as hell shouldn’t be the only one simply because G. W. Bush insists on it.
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