Nofsdad
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7077
Location: Central CA
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005 12:03 am Post subject: Using YOUR money to sell you something.
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http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050305/D88L3OIO2.html
You know, I still really don't have a hard opinion about younger workers being able to invest their retirement money as long as it's well understood that along with the good they might get out of it they have to accept the bad that might come out of it too. I don't want them losing their asses in one of the Wall Street massacres that seem to happen with some regularity and then crawling back and demanding that Social Security make up their losses.
But Mr. Bush's efforts to sell this program to a country that has responded to it at best in a "Lukewarm" fashion makes you wonder just why it is so important to him that he will go to "war" against those who don't buy his plan and who have proposed more viable plans to accomplish his openly stated goals. In other words, what OTHER goals are involved here and who do they benefit?
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Bush Sets Up Social Security 'War Room'
A new Social Security war room inside the Treasury Department is pumping out information to sell President Bush's plan, much like any political campaign might do. It's part of a coordinated effort by the Bush administration.
The internal, taxpayer-funded campaigning is backed up by television advertisements, grass-roots organizing and lobbying from business and other groups that support the Bush plan. The president's opponents are organized too, though they do not enjoy the resources of the White House or Treasury to sell their message. |
Whoa! Taxpayer funded? You mean WE are paying for a campaign the success of which might provide some marginal return to a specific segment of the population? That doesn't sound right. In order to rate this much effort, somebody, somewhere, has GOT to be looking at making a bunch more money than a few percentage points on their SS dividend will provide years down the road.
If you look at it from the viewpoint of following the REAL money, those standing to rake millions, if not billions off the top in the (eventual) 100% privatization of Social Security are those that would administer the funds and investments for the program. The same Wall Street financiers that already have the power to tell your boss to fire you in order to free up another buck or two for their investors.
When you look at it from that viewpoint it's easier to understand why this is being orchestrated so as to force feed it to a public that in general, has not indicated that they want it to any great degree. This administration owes its existence to Wall Street and Wall Street is calling in the markers.
The biggest sin is that they're doing it with taxpayer's money. They're using public funds to push what amounts to a private agenda from which private firms and individuals will be by far the biggest beneficiaries. That ain't right.
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| Additionally, it will deliver "rapid response" to media coverage it doesn't like. "If there is an editorial in a paper that does not reflect the view of the president, they will engage in the traditional rapid response effort to ensure an op-ed or letter to the editor that states our view," Nichols said. |
And they'll pay the writer with your tax dollars, just as they're paid several columnists and "pundits" already to push their own ideological agendas.
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| "They have the right to say their piece and to respond, but to create a whole team of PR experts to try and influence the media, I think, is an excessive use of taxpayer money," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, who opposes the Bush plan. |
That's putting it mildly.
In all fairness, as the article states, Clinton did the same thing during his term so this is not a Democrat-Republican issue. It's a matter of proper use of public funds and the ability of a small segment of the population to get free lobbying at taxpayer expense. Wall street is not only going to get their hands on YOUR retirement money, they're gonna make YOU pay for their lobbying to that end. Pretty sweet.
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