REAL LOCKBOX BECOMING REALITY

Four months ago, on March 16, I told you about The Real Lockbox – a real fix of Social Security being devised by Republicans in Congress, superior to President Bush’s and designed to drive Democrats up a defensive tree. I then promised I would update you on its progress – and now I can report it is fast becoming legislative reality.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced a bill – S.1302 – officially entitled The Stop the Raid on Social Security Act of 2005. He has 10 initial co-sponsors: Rick Santorum (R-PA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Tom Coburn (R-OK), John Sununu (R-NH), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Trent Lott (R-MS) and Sam Brownback (R-KS). The list will grow.

To read the bill, go to the Library of Congress’ Thomas website (named after Thomas Jefferson) and enter the bill number (S.1302) into the Search Bill box. This brings up the bill as a series of links to the bill’s sections. So click on “Printer Friendly Display,” and up will come the full text.

You can also read the text of Senator DeMint’s press conference , where he and his co-sponsors called on Congress to “stop the raid and start saving the surplus” in personal accounts legally owned by workers and not the government.

These Senators will now be putting serious pressure on President Bush to exchange his proposal with theirs, which ends all talk of cutting benefits, terminates Congress’ secret slush fund (it just spends the Social Security surplus on government boondoggles – never a dime of it is saved), invests the surplus payroll taxes into private accounts (what objection can AARP have to that?), and cleans the Democrats’ clock on the issue.

DeMint is confident he can get GW on board. I’ll be keeping you posted.