To the editor:

I have a couple of questions as we consider President Bush’s Social Security privatization plan:

Why would anyone in their right mind trust the future of Social Security, the critically important financial safety net for our elderly citizens, to a man who has Bush’s national finance performance record? Case in point: Over the past four years he has, 1) hosted a depressed economy, 2) hosted a record slump in the job market that has yet to recover, 3) turned a record national surplus into a record national deficit, and 4) started an unnecessary and incredibly costly war, 5) during which he cut taxes.

And why would anyone believe this man when he tells us that Social Security is in crisis after the incredible fiasco of scare tactics, twisted arguments and intelligence failures that made up the last “crisis,” justifying the Iraq war? Many experts insist that Social Security is NOT in crisis. We have time to improve it wisely. But, once again the American public is being frightened, intimidated and set up by the Bush administration to benefit the rich (stock brokerage firms and financial advisers) at the expense of the poor (widows and others whose Social Security benefits will plummet under Bush’s privatization or “personal account” system).

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Please, let’s reject this ill-conceived plan. And let’s leave any problems that Social Security does have to wiser and more trustworthy administrations in America’s future.

Sharon Dewey,

Lawrence