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proven Democratic Gore-Liberman-Robb record.
Remember, eight years ago (under the same failed policies GW would serve us as stale leftovers from the family's fiscal refrigerator) we were suffering recession, unemployment and high interest rates. Foreclosures and layoffs were alarming economists almost as much as they were alarming the people losing their homes jobs and businesses. Let’s not be fooled again. Let's not be fooled about Social Security either. Social Security has been around for all of most of our lives. It's easy to forget that a primary driving force behind social security’s institution was the tremendous financial difficulties faced by Americans during the great depression-itself caused by a catastrophic failing of financial markets.
Now, Republicans would have us experiment with our social security by putting it back into the exact same volatile investments from which social security was designed to insulate us.
In fat times it is easy to believe that lean times are gone forever, but history shows, no matter how rosy things are now, there will always be hard times ahead. (Just elect George Bush and see.) And, although, the stock market is paying very well today- as it was in the 1920s-a great number of the stocks that would be bought today as social security investments may be less than sound in the long run.
Some of the "best" high-tech stocks today are selling at far too many times their potential earnings, companies with no track record, no product and no earnings at all. All sizzle, no steak.When this high-tech boom eventually sorts itself out, there will be many big winners and many big losers. And who's going to cover the losses?
Will the government just watch, as large percentages of people's retirement savings are lost? It's unlikely. Those who put their Social Security in the stock market will keep their money when the market goes up, but the rest of us will cover their losses when their Social Security investments sour.
We re talking about another fiasco where billions upon billions of dollars simply disappear and Joan and John Q. Public foot the bill. Remember the savings and loan debacle? WWII didn’t cost as much. Let's not be fooled again. Vote Gore-Lieberman-Robb for fiscal responsibility and proven prosperity.
Bill Tieckelmann
Washington
96.5%