Social Security’s Missed Jackpot

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Reflecting on George W. Bush’s failed push for Social Security reform, this episode crunches the numbers on what could have been—a 337% S&P 500 gain since 2006—and examines the political missteps from both parties that derailed it. From Democratic resistance to Republican distractions in Iraq, we explore how fear, partisanship, and short-term thinking kept Americans from building lasting wealth through market-based Social Security investing.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast, explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it will have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Social Security reform should a actually had this sent over
to me. I got some people out there talking about
the democrats defeat of George Bush's Social Security reform and
the fact that from the time they wanted to enact
it to the time today, the S and P five hundred,

(00:39):
including dividends has showed a three hundred and thirty seven
percent gain. Would could should have And yes, yes, did
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi lead the charge on that course.
But Democrats have always been against any sort of common

(01:00):
sense investing when it comes to social Security. And you
can go back to actually Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick moynihan
from New York way way way, way, way way back,
said that, yeah, you can't allow that because then it
would make too many people wealthy. Democrats are afraid of

(01:21):
it make too many people wealthy, and they'd be afraid
they would lose votes. He was being honest. Is a
Democrat anyway to blame it just on Nancy Pelosi and
Chuck Schumer quite frankly, is it's wrong. I mean again,
they led the charge. I'm gonna remind everybody again. It's

(01:45):
amazing how I can remember call these things. George W. Bush.
Remember after the election night second terms, again they had
to hold off John Carey didn't concede until like the
next morning. I think they were a rec out in
votes trying to pull something off in Ohio if I
remember correctly. Anyway, I remember George W. Bush giving a

(02:07):
speech and it was kind of an arrogant speech. Was
a tough speech. He was like, I've got political capital.
I remember that line, I've got political capital, and I'm
going to spend it. I want to remind everybody had it,
had the House, had it had it. He's yeah, he

(02:29):
spent his political capital. He spent it in Iraq. Republicans
walked away just Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. Was Mitch
McConnell saying, hey, you want you want to uh, you know,
you want to play Team America World police here and
again I'm guessing this up. He didn't say this. You
might have said it. I don't know. We can't do this.

(02:53):
We're spending too much political capital in Iraq. So was
it really Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer that defeated it?
Or was it our neo con nonsense which perpetually gets
us into trouble? Would A could a should have? No,

(03:14):
we wouldn't be talking about Social Security having twenty five
percent cuts. And again I want to remind abody this
was two thousand and six. This three hundred and thirty
seven percent return was from that point in time. What
happened in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, Oh,
we had great recession, great recession. Again, Democrats would have
freaked out. Look at all the losses were taken. No, no, no,

(03:37):
if you're investing through that period of time when the
markets are down, ooh oh trust me, I know I
have clients. We did this WEE dollar cost average. It
worked out pretty well, and it would have worked out
pretty well for everybody else. So this, this number is
actually much smaller than it would have been. WOULDA could

(04:01):
a should have? Watchdog on Wall Street dot com