As a graduating senior at Bowdoin College, I am concerned about the Bush administration’s Social Security privatization agenda and its potential impacts on Maine residents.

Many argue that Social Security has been the most important anti-poverty mechanism in the United States. It has kept a large number of the retired workers and disabled people out of poverty. Social Security’s progressive benefits formula has been essential in keeping women out of poverty. The Center on Budget and Policies Priorities reports that in Maine 57 percent of elderly women would be poor without Social Security benefits.

The private investment accounts that President Bush has proposed may leave retired workers, particularly women, more vulnerable in their retirement if these accounts perform poorly. It is estimated that the average retiree will lose $152,000 in benefits under the proposed system. This vulnerability to poverty is especially worrisome with deindustrialization in the state that has resulted in the loss of 17,000 manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2003.

I want to be ensured that my investment into the Social Security Trust Fund will support current retirees who have served this country with their labor. I agree that there are many issues with the current Social Security system; however, the crisis is not as profound as the administration has constructed it.

I urge policymakers and citizens to do all within their power to protect the system from privatization and devote their energy to improving the current system.

Rebecca Fontaine, Brunswick

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