President Bush wants to "fix" Social Security - and by "fix" he means steal a third of it. His proposed change will do nothing to prevent the program from imploding. All it will do is take a bunch of your money and give it to stockbrokers.
Furthermore, Social Security doesn't actually need fixing at all. To make the case for his theft, Bush is lying to us. It's really pretty blatant - when he wants you to believe that the system is about to implode, he quotes economic forecasts that assume the worst possible growth rates; but when he wants to convince you that his pie in the sky stock touting scheme will work, he quotes different forecasts that assume excellent growth rates.
If the economy turns out as crappy as his first forecasts predict, then nothing will keep Social Security from going under, along with everything else. If the economy turns out as great as his second forecasts predict, then Social Security will do just fine with no changes at all. Bush's proposed fix is either ineffectual or unnecessary. Or both!
My own favorite fix to Social Security, if and when a fix becomes
necessary, is to remove the $90,000 cap on the FICA tax.
Maybe some of you have never had salaries high enough to know this, but:
as soon as you have made $90,000 in a year, you stop paying FICA
for that year.
The justification for this cap is that rich folks supposedly don't
need Social Security benefits, so why should they pay into the system?
Well, I claim that rich folks are benefitting from Social
Security.
Their benefit consists of not getting guillotined during the revolution
that would inevitably follow if Social Security were to go bankrupt.
They are getting a Society Secure enough for them to enjoy their
wealth, and they should pay for that benefit.
Get rid of the cap!