President Bush will reportedly spend a considerable portion of his State of the Union address tonight, and his political capital over the next year, promoting his plan to allow workers to shift their Social Security money from a general government pool to their own private accounts. Social security used to be called the third rail of American politics. That a politician who has devoted ten out of ten years in public office to increasing the size and power of government would leap upon the tracks to fix this third rail is a welcome surprise.

The Bush argument essentially is a mathematical one. Baby boomers represent a massive portion of the population, and when they retire, a relatively shrinking workforce will have to support a relatively growing group of retirees. In 1950, 16 workers supported one Social Security beneficiary. Now, the ratio is about three to one. Within a few decades, there will be just two workers for every beneficiary. Because people are living longer and baby boomers are getting older, the system will begin many years of paying out more than it takes in by 2018.

Bush's proposal is a worthy one, but not necessarily because it will save Social Security. It deserves support because it takes the government's greedy hands off money belonging to individuals. It gives us more freedom. By what right does the state plan the retirement of every American? Where in the Constitution does it allow the federal government to supervise the pension plans of 290 million Americans?

Social Security is a government scheme that replaced freedom with force. While President Bush's plan doesn't completely overhaul this relic of FDR's nanny-state, it does give workers more choice. It doesn't arrive at the destination, but at least it travels in the right direction.

First and foremost, the disability "system" needs to be taken away from the federal government, OUT of social security. Now when I say this, disabled people gasp, but I have reason for this.

The people making the disability rules don't have a clue. If I had the chance, I would say this to Congress. The 536 people making our law have no concept of what the disabled people go through. Also, due to diseconomies of scale, the system is so bloated it is counterproductive.

What to do?

1. Disability becomes the dominion of the sstates: those currently disabled keep everything as it is, but states have the decision about WHO is disabled and WHAT happens and HOW to finance the program after that.

2. Every single soul who becomes disabled gets free grief counselling-until they grieve for what they have lost, they won't want to get better. Trust me on this, I know what I am talking about.

3. Rewards system-give financial benefit for snitching on cheaters of the system (I know too many who do).

4. Rehabilitation? The current system is a joke. Who wants to go from making mega bucks as an accountant to making silk flowers in front of their TV? Test peoples aptitudes and their attitudes. Not all want to work, but many, many of us want to pay our own way.

I could go on and on, but I won't. I am not sure how much money the feds spend on the disability system, but I am sure giving total control of disability back to the states would save the federal government enough money to buy more time for retiress.

Be well,

Sponge

Interesting, Sponge - but the point remains, the federal government doesn't need "enough money" to do anything for retirees. I'm pretty young, and already the government has bled me for the tune of $13000 for Social Security - a program that tells me every year, in a helpful flyer, exactly how much of my salary they've taken for a system that will be utterly broke (by their own admission) the year I reach full retirement age. I will never see a penny of it.

I'd much rather they cut me my check now. It will save them money in the long run, if I turn out to live long enough - and I can finish paying my student loans and building for my own retirement the old-fashioned way. Even if I blew the wad on 4,000 cases of devilled ham, I'd be within my rights; and of course, I wouldn't be losing that money every year from then on, so I'd still be better off.

Nightfly. Point taken. Unfortunately, this "plan" is truly a ponzi scheme and givne those who have paid in all of their money back would devastate the budget, unless we take away benefits right away. If we did the latter, this would devastate the retirees, who have depended on the program.

We cannot simply do away with the plan cold turkey without doing serious harm to this country, no matter how I wish we could.

I believe that Social Security is more of an economic tool than a social benefit. Our economy is based on consumption now, and those with nothing but social security to spend would suddenly have nothing to spend, hence seriously shrinking the economy. While one could argue that those who pay the tax could spend it instead, that simply isn't a humane thing to do to retirees.

We will have to wean the economy off of this program, slowly, step by step. I think what I suggested was a decent place to start.

Perhaps Bush can find a way to FICA taxes gradually over time and those paying less in taxes would get less benefits. Perhaps within 50 years FICA would be a dinosaur. It only takes a moment to get pregnant, but forever for a woman's body to recover. (Sorry discovery channel is on, lol).

Thanks for an intelligent opinion, Nightfly.

Be well,

Sponge

The Social Security system makes sense because we are all better off if our elderly citizens have at least the promise of a basic system of support. If we rely on all individuals to set up their own retirement savings then we'll have literally millions of Americans who can't feed themselves or pay for healthcare when they are too old to work. I, for one, think we can do better.

Sponge - thanks for the good reply (and well-wishes).

I would propose a cutoff for any one-time payback of all monies gathered - say, under 30 and you get it all automatically, over 60 you're guaranteed benefits under the current system. Everyone in between would be given options based on age, how much was already paid, current salary; things like that. The paybacks could be scheduled to spread out the hit to the treasury. It's like aggressively paying off a high-interest debt: a short-term hit on one's budget, but saving much more in the long run. Our current system slides irresistably toward bankruptcy, and waiting only makes it more expensive to fix.

In any case, I think anyone who wishes it should be permitted to stop contributing entirely, freezing their benefits at their current level. Even that alone would help, because millions would jump at the chance and the government would be paying them far less than the average retiree.

I'm reminded of Frederick II of Prussia. His first act as King was to take the whole list of his civil servants (many of whom had no real work) and draw a heavy black line through it - either they joined the army or were retired on half pay, the theory being that it was much more efficient than paying all of them fully for as long as they clung to the public payroll.

Take care,
NF

Great Frederick II anecdote Nightfly.

I bet I am going to get in trouble with someone for writing this but has anyone ever noticed how gay Social Security is?

I mean to say it is a terribly homosexual concept in that it is sterile, it presupposes a lack of children. It probably isn't accidental that governments implementing national social security plans coincided with the dominant Protestant culture's acceptance of birth control and consequent declining birthrates. (It is also a key component of Keynesian economic theory and Keynes himself could have been hired by Bravo).

The reason social security is going bankrupt is because of declining birthrates (hence less workers from one generation to the next) BUT the reason we instituted social security to begin with was basically due to . . . declining birthrates. In that, traditionally the elderly were cared for by their children and when a couple has, say, 6 children the burden of caring for the elderly parents is spread out so as to be lighter on the 6 children as opposed to 2 elderly parents being cared for by one only child.

So my point is that social security was built to fail from the get-go because it rewarded individualism and callousness towards one's relatives. In fact possibly even violating in spirit the fourth commandment---Catholic numbering, not Protestant---by providing a discincentive for large families as well as being a fundamentally anti-communitarian, anti-family, and basically sterile idea.

So Kenny, I agree with you "we can do better," but I understand that to indicate we could obey natural law better and take care of our own rather then in your implied abstract liberal moralism of "society" could "do better" for the elderly.

Brian: did you just say that SS was gay? And you meant that literally?

You make a strong case that it is part of an anti-family cultural order, and I guess that culture finds its epitome in gayness, but wow.

Homophobe.

Brian - two hours, ten minutes. Where do I go to collect?