Search - 21st Century Bush Administration Initiatives: Strengthening Social Security and Creating Personal Wealth for All Americans, the Final Report of the President¿s Commission to Strengthen Social Security-¿The Moynihan¿Parsons Commission

21st Century Bush Administration Initiatives Strengthening Social Security and Creating Personal Wealth for All Americans the Final Report of the Presidents Commission to Strengthen Social Security-The MoynihanParsons Commission Author: U.S. Government This is a complete reproduction of the final report issued by the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, co-chaired by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Richard Parsons and formed by President George W. Bush. This report is a cornerstone document of the current effort to modernize Social Security and create personal savings acco...  more »unts, an initiative which President Bush is pursuing in his second term of office. The Introduction states: "From the first, Social Security was a work in progress. It remains so now. In 1939, just four years after enactment, the Administration and Congress added major provisions. FDR called for more. As he signed the 1939 Amendments he stated: "we must expect a great program of social legislation, as such as is represented in the Social Security Act, to be improved and strengthened in the light of additional experience and understanding." He urged an "active study" of future possibilities. One such possibility – personal retirement accounts that would endow workers with a measure of wealth – has emerged as the central issue in the ongoing national debate over social insurance. There are a number of reasons for this. The first is the most obvious, if perhaps the least commented upon: Social Security retirement benefits are no longer the bargain they once were. There is nothing sinister about this. Early retirees benefited from the fixed formula of retirement benefits. For years the Social Security Administration would distribute photographs of Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, who having paid $24.75 in Social Security taxes lived to age 100 and collected $22,889 in benefits. In Miss Fuller’s time there were almost 42 covered workers for each Social Security beneficiary. We are now down to 3.4 workers per beneficiary. As a result, Social Security as a retirement measure has become a poor investment. It is, even so, an essential insurance program." From the Findings: "Social Security will be strengthened if modernized to include a system of voluntary personal accounts. Personal accounts improve retirement security by facilitating wealth creation and providing participants with assets that they own and that can be inherited, rather than providing only claims to benefits that remain subject to political negotiation. By allowing investment choice, individuals would be free to pursue higher expected rates of return on their Social Security contributions. Furthermore, strengthening Social Security through personal accounts can add valuable protections for widows, divorced persons, low-income households and other Americans at risk of poverty in old age. Partial advance funding of Social Security should be a goal of any effort to strengthen the system. Advance funding within Social Security can best be accomplished through personal accounts rather than direct government investment. Personal accounts offer numerous economic benefits, including a likely increase in national saving, as well as an improvement in incentives for labor force participation. Personal accounts can be administered in an efficient and cost effective manner. This report outlines specific measures that would effectively balance desires for low administrative costs along with consumer choice and efficient financial markets. Accounts should be structured so as to allow inheritability and to strengthen the protection of spouses. Personal accounts can also contribute towards the fiscal sustainability of the Social Security system. While there are multiple paths to fiscal sustainability that are consistent with the President’s principles for Social Security reform, we have chosen to include three reform models in the report that improve the fiscal sustainability of the current system, are costed honestly, and are preferable to the current Social Security system. Under the current system, benefits to future retirees are scheduled to grow significantly above the level received by today’s retirees, even after adjusting for inf  « less Post This Book Login | Register ISBN-13: 9781592484171 ISBN-10: 1592484174 Publication Date: 1/23/2005 Pages: 240 Rating: Currently 0/5 Stars.   ? 0 stars, based on 0 rating Publisher: Progressive Management Book Type: Ring-bound Members Wishing: 0 Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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