October 31, 2004

Truth About Issues Kerry and Bush Sidestep

Forget the War on Terrorism and the last-minute X-factor surprise by Kerryites to slay Bush with inanities about explosives.

Let’s examine the kitchen table issues – Social Security, Medicare, and jobs.

Read my lips. Social Security is broke!

The so-called Trust Fund is a book- keeping entry of un-funded government IOUs totaling $10.4 trillion – and growing.

Real SS cash is spent by Congress for other goodies the instant it comes in. Kerry says there is enough money in the fund to pay full benefits for the next 40 years.

In fact, Social Security payments by workers and their employers go quickly to retirees. Benefits paid will exceed contributions in just 14 years unless drastic re-financing measures are adopted soon.

Sen. Kerry says he will fund the shortfall by raising the taxes on Americans earning $200 thousand or more.

Fact 2 – if all the incomes of "rich" Americans were confiscated, this would not meet Social Security benefits as now structured.

President Bush proposes that workers be allowed to put a small portion of their contributions privately into market securities – not common stocks.  

This privilege already is available to Congress and other federal employees. It would not apply to present retirees.  

The Social Security trust pays 2-percent return on employee-employer matching contributions. Peanuts. Even in the Great Depression, market securities paid a 4-percent return.

The privately invested portion of  Social Security in-payments would be controlled by the owner and passed on to survivors. Whenever you die under the present plan, your accumulated contributions sink into the pool.

Sen. Kerry frightens retires with the lie that President Bush wants to "privatize" all Social Security funding.

One way or the other, Congress will have to extend the retirement age and/or cut benefits. Bush would cut the pain. Kerry would push us off a cliff.  

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Folks also worry about health care in their declining years. Medicare was set up to alleviate hardships. Yet, it also teeters on bankruptcy.  

Kerry proposes "managed competition" with taxes collected and redistributed by government to a limited number of health insurers picked by Washington politicos.

For a start, Kerry would double the size of free Medicaid for low-income workers -- and add two-thirds of the 44 million middle-income workers not now insured.  

He proposes to set rates and benefit payments for insurance companies and employers already providing health care coverage.

Increased costs? Not to worry. It will be a mere $100 billion a year additional. Sure, taxes will go up; but that’s why taxes were invented.

The ghost of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s secret, universal health care plan stalks the land again – as such plans in Canada and Europe are floundering  

* * *

Presidential elections hinge on three things – jobs, jobs and jobs.

Even left-wing Dems ruefully admit the "recession" -- now waning -- began in the last quarter of Clinton’s watch.  He pushed through the largest tax increase in history. Business slumped. Jobs disappeared.  

To a fund-raiser crowd in Texas, he declared: "You know, I think I raised taxes too much."

Bush took office in Jan. 2001 and persuaded Congress to cut taxes. The economy and jobs began picking up.

Then, destruction of the World Trade Center towers by terrorists in September added a new burden to the recovery.

Job numbers continued to improve but not to the level they had been under Clinton. Kerry asserts this proves Bush "lost" 200 million jobs by "outsourcing" to companies overseas.  

Kerry fails to point out that the jobs he mentions are just those in manufacturing. Government taxes and regulations under Clinton is the main reason companies moved low-skilled jobs mainly to India and China.

Also not acknowledged is that those under developed countries hired high-skill workers here also.

Little noticed is that a structural change in job quality is underway in the U.S. Better educated Americans are moving out of measured corporations to self- employment, partnerships and new businesses.

Education is the key.

The realistic measurement is the unemployment rate – 5.6 under Clinton vs. 5.5 for Bush. The average since Truman is 6.2 percent.

In the realm of social services and jobs – Bush’s plans are do-able. Kerry’s one-size-fits-all plan is to kick the can down the road.  

Vote the issues, not accusations.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be reached at linwms@lindseywilliams.org