Don't beat around the bush:

We read again about Republican plans to change the accounting in order to hide massive shortfalls connected to Social Security "reform". And over at TAPPED, they have a quick summary/comment on the subject.

Let's not waste time here. The Republicans want to end the Social Security Insurance program. That's all there is to it.

Any move away from the safest and most reliable system, of universal enrollment and government issued bonds, is a move away from the original intent. It is not reforming the program. It's ending it.

UPDATE: Yesterday, over at The Left Coaster, Steve Soto has similar thoughts:

... Social Security was never intended or designed to be an investment vehicle. It was simply supposed to be an old age insurance policy, guaranteeing a basic benefit so that seniors would not become destitute. And as such, once you implement the structural fixes that can and should be done to address the system’s long term solvency, there is no case to be made for transforming an old age insurance policy into something that it was never intended to be in the first place.

posted by Quiddity at 12/08/2004 02:24:00 PM