Social Security "Crisis"

"Social Security is bankrupt" is much like "Saddam is going to attack us with WMDs". It is a lie meant to stir deep emotions in order to override actual facts and common sense. Any claims that there is a crisis should be met with a skeptical eye for a hidden agenda. The plain truth is that if Social Security goes completly unchanged, it will continue to pay full benefits for 37 more years. That is a simple fact.

Yes, Social Security will not be able to indefinitely match the current rate of payout with its current intake. At the current rate, that will happen between 2042 and 2052. It can be solved by any one of several different means, and by "solved", I mean being put into the black permanently:

• raise the cap on SSI tax withholding (i.e. the rich still don't have to pay as much, proportionalty, as the working class, but slightly closer to it)


• repeal just 25% of Bush's tax cuts for the very weathiest of Americans


• change the cost-of-living from wage-based to consumer-price-index-based


• make small changes in retirement ages (i.e. cut benefits)

Social Security needs some updating. It does not need to be privatized. Privitization will cause three transfers:

• Power from the people and government to corporate CEOs


• Money from taxpayers to plan administrators


• Retirees' faith from US government to the benevelence of Wall Street investment firms and plan administratiors

Would I prefer to have a private account instead of social security? You bet, I would profit from it. But the Social Security Administration is not supposed to be about bestowing profit on a few. It's supposed to be about … well, social security.
So, where is the financial crisis? Here's some perspective. The long-term cost of the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy is five times the budget office's estimate of Social Security's deficit over the next 75 years. Bush's 2003 prescription drug bill (designed to enrich drug companies, not help those who need medication) alone increases the deficit more than the projected rise in Social Security expenses.

See also
Some friends' discussion thread
CNN/Money: a brief summary
Motley Fool: myth busting
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Bush's plan to cut 46% of benefits
Paul Krugman: health of social security
Wall Street Journal: Bush's hidden plan to cut benefits

(political cartoon credit to Steve Sack)