The impact of privatization

Portland Press Herald:

If President Bush's plan for Social Security were in place today, at least 33,000 Mainers would be in poverty and the state would be left to shoulder the burden, according to a new report from the Campaign for America's Future.

The national advocacy group says the president's idea of allowing people to divert a portion of their payroll taxes into private investment accounts would reduce guaranteed benefits for everybody.

That, in turn, would create a new generation of poor seniors in Maine whose housing and health care would need to be subsidized by the state, likely through higher taxes, the report says.

"People in Maine deserve to get the benefits they pay for and shouldn't accept a plan that makes things worse," Toby Chaudhuri, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based organization, said Thursday.