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WASHINGTON,
D.C. – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) today continued her efforts
to provide her constituents with facts
about President Bush’s proposed Social Security privatization plan.
Schakowsky
unveiled an online
calculator on her webpage that visitors can use to determine their
Social Security benefits under privatization. For example, a worker
who is born in 1985 and who earns an annual average salary of $50,000 would
receive $28,260 in annual Social Security retirement benefits under current
law. Under the President’s privatization scheme, the same individual
would get $18,199 annually, a cut of more than $10,000 each year.
That figure is a combination of Social Security benefits and private accounts.
“Arming
the American people with the facts about President Bush’s Social Security
privatization scheme is our best weapon to defend against Republican plans
to destroy it. It is going to take more than a PR campaign by President
Bush to convince the American people that cutting their Social Security
benefits and saddling them with more than $5 trillion in debt over the
next 20 years in the right public policy,” Schakowsky said.
She
continued, “Voters are rejecting President Bush’s vision for Social Security
today and they will continue to reject it tomorrow. The American
people understand that Social Security faces some long-term challenges.
But they also understand that Democrats and Republicans must work together
to find the right solution to strengthen, not privatize, Social Security.”
Democrats,
including Schakowsky, are working to counter President Bush’s taxpayer-funded
nationwide PR tour designed to bolster support for private accounts in
Social Security and have held town hall meeting in their Congressional
Districts. In Chicago, Schakowsky organized a town hall that
was attended by 700 people who expressed great concern about the President’s
plan to privatize Social Security. U.S. Senators Dick Durbin
and Barack Obama joined Schakowsky at the town hall meeting. |
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