According to The Hill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that House Republicans are trying to privatize the Social Security fund and that such a change would result in the trust fund incurring a massive loss. Pelosi mentions that a recent downturn in the stock market is a good idea how privatizing would bring down the SSA’s surpluses.
According to Pelosi, President Bush and his Republican allies pushed to privatize and cut Social Security five years ago. Had they succeeded seniors today would have lost trillions of dollars more in the financial crisis, says the Speaker. The recent American financial crisis lead families and household to loose more than $17 trillion in wealth.
Under President Bush’ proposal, a law would have allowed individuals to invest a percentage of their Social Security benefits in an investment instrument. The rate of those returns would have been greater than keeping the monies in the trust fund, claimed congressional Republicans. The plan wanted to make those funds transferable, meaning the monies would transfer to a surviving family members.
Republicans lost power to push such a measure and pass it in to law. According to Pelosi, it is good that the plan failed and the stock market has taken a plunge and Americans would have lost a significant amount of money on their retirement and benefit investments.
Republican Ryan Paul (Wis) is pushing a similar measure in the current administration, which would allow workers to invest their Social Security benefits in a personal savings account, which would provide a higher yield but contain a greater risk than the trust fund.
