Bush's Totalization Plan Threatens Social Security

[peejay 327]

Bush's Totalization Plan Threatens Social Security

by Phyllis Schlafly

Posted Jan 15, 2007

President Bush's secret plan for Social Security has just been released to the public in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by TREA Senior Citizens League, a million-member seniors advocacy group.

For years the president carried on an energetic public relations campaign to promote his plan to privatize part of Social Security, but he kept under White House lock and key the "totalization" agreement his administration secretly made with Mexico in June 2004.

Is that any way to run the government, or to commit billions of taxpayer dollars? Maybe we have been needing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to demand "the most honest, most open" government in history.

If and when Bush personally signs this agreement, it will automatically become law without any congressional action. The law that would have allowed one House of Congress to reject it by a vote within 60 days is generally thought to violate the Supreme Court's 1983 decision in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, which declared unconstitutional a one-House veto of a president's action.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has introduced Senate Bill 43 to require totalization agreements to be treated like bilateral trade agreements. His bill would permit a totalization agreement to go into effect only if affirmatively passed by both houses of Congress.

Unless we live in some sort of Bush dictatorship, that's the very least of what totalization should require. It ought to be considered a treaty and require approval by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate.

Totalization is the bureaucratic buzzword for the plan to put millions of illegal Mexican workers into the U.S. Social Security system. They would collect U.S. benefits based on their U.S earnings under false or stolen Social Security numbers plus alleged earnings in Mexico.

U.S. citizens must work 10 years to be eligible for Social Security benefits, but the totalization agreement would allow Mexicans to qualify with only 18 months of work in the United States, and pretend to make up the difference by assuming work in Mexico. It is highly doubtful that the illegal immigrants ever paid into a Mexican system for eight and a half years.

It could be "virtual" work or "virtual" payments (just like the "virtual" fence proposed for the U.S.-Mexico border, or the "virtual" law that promised to build one).

A 2003 Government Accountability Office report tactfully declined to comment on "the integrity of Mexico's social security data" and warned that the cost to U.S. taxpayers is "highly uncertain."

The United States has totalization agreements with 21 other countries in order to assure a pension to those few individuals who work in two countries (legally, of course) by "totalizing" their payments into the pension systems of both countries. All existing totalization agreements are with industrialized nations whose retirement systems are on a parity with that of the United States.

Mexican retirement benefits are not remotely equal to U.S. benefits. U.S. citizens receive benefits after working for 10 years, but Mexicans have to work 24 years before receiving benefits.

Mexican workers receive in retirement only what they paid in plus interest, whereas the U.S. Social Security system is skewed to give lower-wage earners benefits greatly in excess of what they and their employers contributed.

Mexico has two different retirement programs, one for public-sector employees, which is draining the Mexican national treasury, and one for private-sector workers, which covers only 40 percent of the work force. Most Mexicans who illegally entered the United States previously lived in poverty, where they were unemployed, or worked in the off-the-record economy, or worked for employers who did not pay taxes into a retirement system.

The Bush totalization plan would put millions of Mexicans onto the rolls of the U.S. Social Security system just as the baby boom generation retires. The White House won't deny that imposing higher taxes on U.S. workers is "on the table" to deal with the expected shortfall.

The Bush totalization plan would lure even more Mexicans into the United States illegally in the hope of amnesty and eligibility for Social Security benefits for themselves, as well as for their spouses and dependents who may never have lived in the United States.

Totalization is part and parcel of the Council on Foreign Relations five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter." The 59-page CFR document - which can claim Bush administration approval because it is posted on a U.S. State Department Web site - demands the implementation of "the Social Security Totalization Agreement negotiated between the United States and Mexico."

Americans should raise a mighty clamor to demand that President Bush NOT sign this billion-dollar rip-off of American taxpayers and senior citizens. Meanwhile, tell your Congressional representative to hurry up and pass the Ensign bill.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18945

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The Bush totalization plan would put millions of Mexicans onto the rolls of the U.S. Social Security system just as the baby boom generation retires.

Wouldn't this help SS remain solvent?

[peejay 327]

The Bush totalization plan would put millions of Mexicans onto the rolls of the U.S. Social Security system just as the baby boom generation retires.

Wouldn't this help SS remain solvent?

There are quite a lot of illegals already paying into the system with stolen or fake numbers. So I'm sure that is a plus...they shouldn't be rewarded for doing it. I have no problem with legal Mexicans being included if it is in our best interests to have this agreement.

To be honest...I would feel a lot more comfortable with this if more eyes and minds were involved instead of just Bush's.

Reading these articles doesn't tell the whole story. But it sure doesn't sound like it is a good deal for Americans.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Ok this is going to be simplistic but here it is anyway:

What if we were faced with a choice and we had to pick one? Choice A: Grant amnesty to all illegal aliens in exchange for SS remaining solvent for another 200 years. Choice B: Deport all illegal aliens in exchange for SS becoming insolvent in 10 years (no more payments for anybody).

Which would you pick? I'd pick Choice A.

[peejay 327]

Ok this is going to be simplistic but here it is anyway:

What if we were faced with a choice and we had to pick one? Choice A: Grant amnesty to all illegal aliens in exchange for SS remaining solvent for another 200 years. Choice B: Deport all illegal aliens in exchange for SS becoming insolvent in 10 years (no more payments for anybody).

Which would you pick? I'd pick Choice A.

I'd pick "none of the above".

[Ban Hammer 14,420]

Ok this is going to be simplistic but here it is anyway:

What if we were faced with a choice and we had to pick one? Choice A: Grant amnesty to all illegal aliens in exchange for SS remaining solvent for another 200 years. Choice B: Deport all illegal aliens in exchange for SS becoming insolvent in 10 years (no more payments for anybody).

Which would you pick? I'd pick Choice A.

i think choice a is unrealistic in it lasting 200 years because they are paying into it

[Ban Hammer 14,420]

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Of course the scenario isn't realistic. What I'm trying to get a feel for is what is more important: keeping illegals illegal or SS solvency.

[peejay 327]

Ok this is going to be simplistic but here it is anyway:

What if we were faced with a choice and we had to pick one? Choice A: Grant amnesty to all illegal aliens in exchange for SS remaining solvent for another 200 years. Choice B: Deport all illegal aliens in exchange for SS becoming insolvent in 10 years (no more payments for anybody).

Which would you pick? I'd pick Choice A.

i think choice a is unrealistic in it lasting 200 years because they are paying into it

The funny thing is...I see a lot of articles and people that are against this agreement. I haven't run into a lot of people in favor of it. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places...but that kind of throws up red flags to me. Especially since there are so many from Bush's own party that are against it.

If it is such a great deal for the American people...why was it done in secret?

Enquiring minds want to know.

[peejay 327]

Of course the scenario isn't realistic. What I'm trying to get a feel for is what is more important: keeping illegals illegal or SS solvency.

How about keeping illegals illegal and keeping SS solvent. I have an ambitious agenda. I want my cake and to eat it too!

[thai2luv 0]

Bush's Totalization Plan Threatens Social Security

by Phyllis Schlafly

Posted Jan 15, 2007

President Bush's secret plan for Social Security has just been released to the public in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by TREA Senior Citizens League, a million-member seniors advocacy group.

For years the president carried on an energetic public relations campaign to promote his plan to privatize part of Social Security, but he kept under White House lock and key the "totalization" agreement his administration secretly made with Mexico in June 2004.

Is that any way to run the government, or to commit billions of taxpayer dollars? Maybe we have been needing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to demand "the most honest, most open" government in history.

If and when Bush personally signs this agreement, it will automatically become law without any congressional action. The law that would have allowed one House of Congress to reject it by a vote within 60 days is generally thought to violate the Supreme Court's 1983 decision in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, which declared unconstitutional a one-House veto of a president's action.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has introduced Senate Bill 43 to require totalization agreements to be treated like bilateral trade agreements. His bill would permit a totalization agreement to go into effect only if affirmatively passed by both houses of Congress.

Unless we live in some sort of Bush dictatorship, that's the very least of what totalization should require. It ought to be considered a treaty and require approval by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate.

Totalization is the bureaucratic buzzword for the plan to put millions of illegal Mexican workers into the U.S. Social Security system. They would collect U.S. benefits based on their U.S earnings under false or stolen Social Security numbers plus alleged earnings in Mexico.

U.S. citizens must work 10 years to be eligible for Social Security benefits, but the totalization agreement would allow Mexicans to qualify with only 18 months of work in the United States, and pretend to make up the difference by assuming work in Mexico. It is highly doubtful that the illegal immigrants ever paid into a Mexican system for eight and a half years.

It could be "virtual" work or "virtual" payments (just like the "virtual" fence proposed for the U.S.-Mexico border, or the "virtual" law that promised to build one).

A 2003 Government Accountability Office report tactfully declined to comment on "the integrity of Mexico's social security data" and warned that the cost to U.S. taxpayers is "highly uncertain."

The United States has totalization agreements with 21 other countries in order to assure a pension to those few individuals who work in two countries (legally, of course) by "totalizing" their payments into the pension systems of both countries. All existing totalization agreements are with industrialized nations whose retirement systems are on a parity with that of the United States.

Mexican retirement benefits are not remotely equal to U.S. benefits. U.S. citizens receive benefits after working for 10 years, but Mexicans have to work 24 years before receiving benefits.

Mexican workers receive in retirement only what they paid in plus interest, whereas the U.S. Social Security system is skewed to give lower-wage earners benefits greatly in excess of what they and their employers contributed.

Mexico has two different retirement programs, one for public-sector employees, which is draining the Mexican national treasury, and one for private-sector workers, which covers only 40 percent of the work force. Most Mexicans who illegally entered the United States previously lived in poverty, where they were unemployed, or worked in the off-the-record economy, or worked for employers who did not pay taxes into a retirement system.

The Bush totalization plan would put millions of Mexicans onto the rolls of the U.S. Social Security system just as the baby boom generation retires. The White House won't deny that imposing higher taxes on U.S. workers is "on the table" to deal with the expected shortfall.

The Bush totalization plan would lure even more Mexicans into the United States illegally in the hope of amnesty and eligibility for Social Security benefits for themselves, as well as for their spouses and dependents who may never have lived in the United States.

Totalization is part and parcel of the Council on Foreign Relations five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter." The 59-page CFR document - which can claim Bush administration approval because it is posted on a U.S. State Department Web site - demands the implementation of "the Social Security Totalization Agreement negotiated between the United States and Mexico."

Americans should raise a mighty clamor to demand that President Bush NOT sign this billion-dollar rip-off of American taxpayers and senior citizens. Meanwhile, tell your Congressional representative to hurry up and pass the Ensign bill.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18945

Let's reward people for committing identity theft, which is probaly felony offense. #######???

Edited January 16, 2007 by thai2luv

[Kathryn41 3,205]

I think there is a valid point for treating this as a tax treaty similar to the treaty in existance between Canada and the US. It isn't the worker's 'say' that verifies employment contributions to the Canada Pension Plan - it requires government verification of contributions and as such is governed by a tax treaty with the US that determines the blending of the two sources of retirement incomes for Canadian contributers residing in the US with rates of contributions required and agreements about rates of taxation and who gets paid what by whom and when. If Mexican workers - legal or illegal - are making contributions to Social Security and wish to blend their qualifications with contributions to a Mexican retirement plan based on income contributions, then the Mexican government must be able to validate their rates and years of contribution. This article doesn't state if this approach will be taken but does imply that it isn't being treated as a tax treaty. That is certainly cause for concern.

Edited January 16, 2007 by Kathryn41