"THEY HAVE TRUST FUNDS, NOT LOCKBOXES"I would like to welcome
Don Surber,
Charleston Daily Mail columnist and blogger to the
Zenpundit blogroll where he joins the growing ranks of dual Old Media-New Media hybrid pundits with one foot in both camps, a list that includes
Austin Bay,
Geitner Simmons,
Thomas P.M. Barnett and
Robin Burk.
Don is an ex-Democrat who writes on political issues with a feisty, combative yet civil style. Here he is taking on Democratic hypocrisy on the value of Stock Market investing, public and private:
"The five richest senators are John Kerry, Herb Kohl, Jay Rockefeller, Jon Corzine and Dianne Feinstein. Democrats all. They have trust funds, not lockboxes. Another Democratic senator, Barbara Boxer, is a former stockbroker. I am tired of the do-as-we-deem, not-as-we-indulge attitude of limousine liberals. But it is not just their personal accounts that they refuse to put in lockboxes. Federal employees already have the very choices President Bush wants to give all American workers. The federal thrift plan boasts of returns that average 10 percent a year. By the end of 2003, the plan had $128 billion invested by 3.2 million people. State pension plans across the nation invest in Wall Street. With their $5.5 billion pension bond proposal, Democrats in West Virginia are promising voters that Wall Street will average better than 7.5 percent returns annually for the next 30 years. Most of that money will be used to shore up the teacher pension plan.
If Wall Street is good enough for their teachers, then it should be good enough for my kids, who will face 30 percent cuts in their Social Security when they retire. President Bush ought to visit West Virginia and endorse this pension bond plan -- and double-dog-dare Sens. Bob Byrd and Rockefeller to denounce the $5.5 billion pension bond as a "risky scheme." Let John Kerry propose liquidating the federal thrift plan to protect federal workers from the next bear market."I can hear the blood pressure rising out there in some quarters of my blogroll already ;o) Welcome aboard Don !