Obama warns seniors on Social Security

[Terri]

By MIKE GLOVER
Associated Press
May 19, 2008

GRESHAM, Ore. (AP) -- Hours before being greeted by the biggest crowd of his campaign, Democrat Barack Obama quietly told a small group of seniors Sunday that Republican John McCain would threaten the Social Security they depend on because he supports privatizing the program.

Fire officials estimated 65,000 packed into a riverside park for a spectacular afternoon rally at a sun-splashed scene on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland. They said an additional 15,000 were left outside and dozens of boaters could be seen floating in the river.

''Wow, wow, wow,'' Obama said as he surveyed the audience. ''We have had a lot of rallies. This is the most spectacular setting, the most spectacular crowd we have had this entire campaign.''

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[oldjules]

What a deal. What kind of place is that where 80,000 people can not find something better to do than listen to him.
The number of years that S.S. will last, as we know it, are limited. Mr. Obomba will add some more taxes on the working class.

[righton]

Anyone with an IQ above body temperature would support the privatization of a portion of their Social Security benefits.

As it now stands, the return on the so-called investment of these funds is comparable to the 1% in money market funds.

Hussein and the rest of the idiotic pols who oppose this have only one thing in mind - any monies turned over to the prospective receipants is just that much less they will have to spend on their so-called pork/entitlement bills. They just don't want to give up OUR money.

Something else seniors should consider - anything they are able to invest in private funds from their Social Security benefits can be passed on to their heirs. As it now stands, when you die, heirs can wave bye-bye to any monies you had received. And, it doesn't matter if you have been receiving payments for years, or just a couple of months. When you die, so does any payouts.

L&L

[Terri]

I agree with you except that it's young people who need to consider what their return will be. It's too late for seniors.

[SeniorAmerican]

''Let me be clear, privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George W. Bush proposed it, it's a bad idea today,'' Obama said. ''That's why I stood up against this plan in the Senate and that's why I won't stand for it as president.

About 40 years ago I wrote a computer program that considered establishing an investment account comprised of contributions equal to the individual's Social Security tax (4% at that time). Many factors were considered, historically averaged inflation rate, return on investment, pay increases based on infrquent promotions and inflation, etc. Using an anticipated work life of 43 years (22 to 65)as a base the end result was retirement income at greater than the last employment pay. It was an unsophisticated compound interest model that seems to escape Mr Obama and his economic advisors.

[Thundercat505]

Democrat Barack Obama quietly told a small group of seniors Sunday that Republican John McCain would threaten the Social Security they depend on because he supports privatizing the program.

hey, this type garbage worked against bob dole and a couple others in the past, why not once again???? this is typical dumb rhetoric used in nearly every presidential election for the past 30 years.

I agree terri, too late for the o/f's but the young need to worry about it.

[ddrinsp]

As a recently retired senior citizen, I certainly would have liked the opportunity to invest some of the thousands of dollars I personally paid into Social Secuirty over my 47 years in the work force. Not only would my retirement income be greater but my children/grandchildren would have the benefit of my private investments after my death.

But of course, Obama's solution to EVERYTHING is for higher-income workers to pay more taxes. Make no mistake -- Obama is a Marxist.

Diana, a Texas grandmother

[elmerck1]

Hello!.Ihave been for this plan for years, but congress is going to do nothing that might upset the apple cart, and cost them their retirement job.If we start now, the future generations will have more retirement money, and they are going to need it.Just look at the cost of living right now. What do you think it will look like 15 years from now. I am 81 years old, and just getting by. If I had depended on SS I would be in a veteran's home today ,because I wouldn't be getting enough to live on. Now is the time to change, and with two good men working right now to help change it, we just in my lifetime see a change.

[Jolanta]

Social Security was never meant to be one's sole source of income. We are told that now but it would have been nice if that little fact had had more air time at the beginning. Then people would have know to put more money into private investments. I think it does not help that Social Security is mandatory.

[Terri]

We were told that at the beginning.

7. PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENT SIGNING THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT. AUGUST 14,1935

Today a hope of many years' standing is in large part fulfilled. The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure. Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age. The man with a job has wondered how long the job would last.

This social security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old-age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.

We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.

This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.

I congratulate all of you ladies and gentlemen, all of you in the Congress, in the executive departments and all of you who come from private life, and I thank you for your splendid efforts in behalf of this sound, needed and patriotic legislation.

If the Senate and the House of Representatives in this long and arduous session had done nothing more than pass this Bill, the session would be regarded as historic for all time.