No Straight Talk in Bush's Speech

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on President Bush's State of the Union Address

From AFL-CIO

When the president talks to America about something as serious as working families' retirement security, we need to hear sound facts and straight talk.

But that's not what we heard from President Bush in last night's State of the Union address.

• With private pensions and public employee retirement plans under attack, working families need more retirement security, not less. But privatizing Social Security would make retirement less secure by cutting guaranteed benefits by 30 percent for even for those who do not choose privatized accounts.
• For workers who do choose to have privatized accounts, the government would take back 50 cents for every $1 in an account-on top of the 30 percent cut in guaranteed benefits.
• For the average worker who lives 20 years beyond retirement, that's a $152,000 cut in guaranteed benefits. Privatization would push many more seniors into poverty.
• Privatization would hurt the economy and explode the deficit, passing on $2 trillion in debt to our children during the first decade alone. Most of that money would be borrowed from foreign bankers in China and Japan.
• Privatization would open Social Security up to corruption, waste and Enron-ization because politicians would hand-pick which Wall Street investment companies could make billions off our privatized accounts. Decisions about Americans' retirement security should be based on what's best for average people, not tied to politicians' wealthy friends or companies that have political influence.