THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO PRESERVE SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE
~ Millions of Seniors ~ One Voice ~No Privatization ~

November 16 , 2007

NEWS RELEASE

Thompson Social Security Privatization Plan Offers More of the Same

Private accounts, benefit cuts and billions of dollars in additional debt await Americans if Fred Thompson's Social Security plan is implemented.  The National Committee details the Thompson privatization plan in a new analysis released today.

The brief finds that, like President Bush's Social Security privatization plan, candidate Thompson's proposal would:

• Divert money out of Social Security and into private accounts.
• Make huge cuts in Social Security benefits.
• Increase the public debt by trillions of dollars.
• Shift risk to individual retirees.

Thompson's plan would even go beyond the President's failed Social Security proposal by:

• Making larger reductions in Social Security benefits by completely indexing benefits to prices rather than using a combination of wages and prices
  
• Raise the Social Security retirement age for those with private accounts, effectively reducing their Social Security benefits further.
  
• Require workers, through an automatic but reversible wage reduction, to contribute 2 percent of their wages to a private investment account.

With millions of members and supporters across America , the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is the nation's # 1 advocacy group fighting to protect Social Security and Medicare for all citizens. The National Committee led the successful defeat of President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security two years ago and will continue to fight against the dismantling of Social Security through privatization. The full analysis of the Thompson privatization plan is online at http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/thompson_ss_plan/