Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Private accounts replace Social Security in Galveston County Texas

NY Times:

As governor of Texas, George W. Bush had an up-close look at what many advocates of individual Social Security investment accounts consider a laboratory for how such a system might work: Galveston County's retirement system.

In 1981 officials in Galveston, a seafront city on the Gulf of Mexico opted out of Social Security along with neighboring Brazoria and Matagorda Counties and chose instead to plunge their county governments into the unknown territory of offering private retirement accounts.

Hundreds of employees in these counties have since retired under the system and more than 4,000 current employees make deposits into their private accounts each month.

...

The Houston investment firm that designed the Galveston plan invests employees' money mostly in safe but low-yielding securities, providing participants with quarterly updates on their investments and the opportunity to withdraw their money in a lump sum upon retirement or in installments over several years.

"I have the luxury of completely forgetting about Social Security," said Kirk Greene, 42, an information technology manager who began working full time for Galveston County with a salary of about $14,000 a year in 1986, five years after it adopted the system.

Mr. Greene said he now had about $120,000 in the Galveston plan in addition to some $130,000 in the county's pension plan. Mr. Greene, who earns about $75,000 a year, said he expected to retire in nine years.

"I'll be going fishing when many of my friends will still be working," said Mr. Greene, cherishing his ability to start drawing his money at 51, an option not available under Social Security. "I feel able to benefit from the money that I myself put in."

...

For all the debate, participants in the plan tend to have few complaints about returns as long as they know that their accounts are gaining in value.

"It's known that we've got one of the best retirements in the law profession in Texas," said Robert Dodd, 36, a sheriff's deputy who recently moved to Galveston.

A 22-year-old colleague, Dustin Helms, on a cigarette break with him, took that thought a bit further.

"Social Security's a joke, and everybody knows it," Mr. Helms said. "By the time I retire it's not going to be around. I might as well stick around here."

The story also quotes many who think lowincome workers do not do as well under the plan. As always, it sucks to be poor, just ask the Times.