3-17-05, 8:56 am

After weeks of promotion, a blitz of taxpayer-financed TV commercials, and wildly spun tales almost entirely uncritically accepted by the corporate media from the GOP machine about an imminent Social Security crisis, more people disapprove of Bush's privatization plan than did just three weeks ago. In 1979, Turner points out, the British government also indexed benefit increases to prices instead of wages. According to at least one study, this has meant that British pensioners receive some of the lowest pensions in the world.

If their benefit increases had been indexed to wages, the value of their current pensions would average 24 percent higher, a situation that has prompted the British Trades Union Congress to demand a return to wage indexing. If that wasn't enough, there is more bad news for British pensioners using private accounts. Regulations did not prevent investment firms from tricking retirees into buying accounts that they didn't need, ripping them off for thousands of pounds. Additionally, before strict regulations about fees, private account holders paid out as much as 30 percent of their accounts in fees.

Bush's plan promises to hand over the money and the control of private accounts to private firms. And, philosophically, Bush comes from a school of thought that wants to restrain as much governmental regulatory authority as possible. Critics of private accounts see this as a basis for a repeat of the failings of the British system if Bush's plan is enacted.

Momentum Shifts Against Bush

The recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll indicates the growing success of the efforts of groups who want to keep the Social Security system as a payroll tax supported, publicly operated, guaranteed benefits social insurance program.

Among the leaders of this movement has been the labor movement. The AFL-CIO launched a petition drive that has gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures against Bush's proposals.

One of the more imaginative campaigns, however, has been the public pressure put on investment firms that have joined a coalition called the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security (AWRS), a pleasantly named arm of the National Association of Manufacturers. AWRS has spent millions on TV ads in support of Bush's privatization plan and plans tens of millions more, according to the National Journal.

The union asked its members and allies to pressure companies with letters, e-mails, phone calls and public demonstrations demanding these companies not support privatization.

As a result of the pressure Waddell and Reed, an investment firm headquartered in Kansas withdrew from the AWRS. The union is also aiming its campaign at investment firms Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina and Charles Schwab in San Francisco with public demonstrations on March 31. Charles Schwab was a major donor to the Bush reelection campaign.

In addition to the Wachovia and Schwab protests, the AFL-CIO will hold at least 50 events in dozens of cities on March 31, according to AFL-CIO Director of Investment Bill Patterson.

Add your voice to the millions who have already spoken out against Bush's plan to privatize Social Security by clicking here.



--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.