IF YOU want to know why So cial Security is on the verge of collapse after decades of disgraceful mismanagement by politicians in Washington, just look at Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s record on private accounts.
This week, she proposed giving all Americans 401(k) retirement accounts and up to $1,000 in annual matching funds from the federal government.
Forget what you think about plunging the country $25 billion further into debt each year. The key thing here is her obvious belief that private investment accounts are the best and surest way to guarantee a prosperous retirement.
So, it would naturally follow that when President Bush proposed allowing Americans to divert a small portion of their Social Security taxes into private accounts where the feds could no longer steal it, Clinton was a big supporter.
Right? Wrong.
“We’ve got to fight and finally bury the idea of privatizing Social Security,” Clinton said of Bush’s plan when she proposed her own private investment proposal this week.
Since even before Bush made his proposal, Democrats used the worst kind of scare tactics to undermine it.
During the 2004 presidential race, millionaires John Kerry and John Edwards passed pillboxes out to elderly voters in Florida and told them Bush wanted to destroy Social Security.
He wanted to reward his wealthy Wall Street friends, they said, by forming all these new private accounts that they, in turn, would get to manage.
There is one thing that unites both sides of the issue in Washington. None of the politicians on either side of the debate will ever have to worry about the fast-approaching day when Social Security checks turn to rubber.
Not only do members of Congress enjoy the Cadillac of retirement pensions, the vast majority of them are wealthy beyond our wildest dreams.
churt@nypost.com