Lindsay Graham appeared on TV the other day and suggested that Social Security benefits need to be cut to keep it solvent.
Once again, Lindsay is wrong.
Government spent the money from Social Security on stuff other than the retirements of those who contributed. Now the Social Security savings are gone. The government spent our savings when it used Social Security for other projects.
The federal government used a little noticed line in the legislation to use the Social Security Trust Fund for things other than payments to the contributor. The government raided the fund. LBJ and the Democrat Congress of the 1960s were the first to raid it. They used it to finance the Great Society since most other funds were being used by LBJ for his Viet Nam War. That act of theft from Social Security funds has been duplicated by almost every administration since LBJ.
The Social Security System morphed from an annuity program to a ponzi scheme where the current generation of workers pays the retirement benefits for the current retirees. And since the baby boomers did not have enough children to replace themselves, the decreasing number of workers per retirees must pay more into the fund or it will operate at a deficit. Therefore, the Social Security Trust fund is close to insolvent today and the solution proposed by the government is too cut back on the benefits to retirees. The Social Security program became just another tax on people to finance other government programs.
- Politicians and economists are discussing how benefits need to be cut back for retirees in order to keep Social Security solvent. That is not true. Look at the wages for government employees and the number of them. Since government employees make 30% more than their counterparts in the private sector, their compensations can be cut to more than offset the deficits in the Social Security trust. The Federal Government stole the money from our pensions in the Social Security Trust and used it for political projects, so the federal government needs to figure out how to pay it back. And one way is to cut government employee compensation. A five percent cut to all government workers would provide the $30 Billion per year to keep Social Security solvent with no reductions to benefits to retirees.
- All legislation, especially legislation like Obamacare, must be inspected closely to make sure that there are no imbedded taxes and imbedded rules that will hurt America in the future like how politicians used the Social Security funds.
Michael Master is the author of “Save America Now!” It can be ordered at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1616235756
