UAW Blasts Bush's Social Security Commission

    DETROIT, May 3 UAW President Stephen P. Yokich today
blasted President Bush's newly-announced commission on Social Security as
"nothing more than political cover for Bush's proposal to privatize Social
Security."
    "In contrast to previous federal commissions that studied ways to
strengthen the Social Security system, Bush's commission starts its work with
its mind already made up," Yokich said.  "All the members of this commission
are ardent proponents of replacing Social Security's guarantee of lifetime,
inflation-adjusted retirement benefits with risky individual investment
accounts that put retired workers' financial security at the mercy of the ups
and downs of the stock market."
    "President Bush is trying to sell his privatization plan as 'all gain, no
pain,'" Yokich noted.  "But if just two percentage points of the 12.4 percent
Social Security payroll tax were shifted into individual retirement accounts
as Bush has proposed, workers 55 and younger would face, on average, a 41
percent cut in their Social Security benefits."
    "In addition, Bush has indicated that he is open to raising the retirement
age as a way to pay for individual investment accounts," Yokich continued.
"If Bush decides to cover half the cost of his plan by increasing the
retirement age, he would have to raise the retirement age to over 70 for
workers 35 and younger today."
    "Bush's privatization plan also places at risk the nearly 4 million
children who receive benefits because a parent has died, been disabled or
retired, and the more than 5 million Americans who receive benefits because
they are so severely disabled they are unable to work," Yokich added.
    "For more than 60 years, Social Security has been the bedrock of
retirement security for America's working men and women," Yokich said.
"President Bush's privatization plan represents a sharp break with the
commitment shared by previous presidents, Democrats and Republicans, to
strengthen the Social Security system.  The UAW strongly opposes Bush's plan
to turn Social Security over to Wall Street."

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