1. There is no Social Security Crisis. The trust fund is not going to run out, and the money in it is tied up in US Government Bonds,
so it's as secure as the government is.
2. Rates of return on private accounts would not be significantly higher than the "return" on your current Social Security money.
3. It's all so far in the future that the political landscape will shift multiple times before there's any sort of crisis. In a private email, I called Social Security a busted Ponzi scheme, which Mark attempts to refute, too. As far as I'm concerned, that's all beside the point. I have the following objections: 1. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Calling it welfare does not make it less so. 2. It may not be Constitutional. 3. Even if it is, it's an expansion of federal powers that I'm opposed to. 4. There are no guarantees. It's not insurance. It's a welfare program, funded by a regressive tax. 5. It's part of the larger budget crisis, and the Social Security Trust Fund is being used to mask much larger budget problems. A Ponzi Scheme Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. As discussed in this article, money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses. That's exactly how Social Security is funded. According to their own FAQ: Social Security is largely a "pay-as-you-go" system with today's taxpayers paying for the benefits of today's retirees. Constitutionality Then there's the question of whether Social Security is Constitutional It was declared so in 1937, but by a Supreme Court under duress, and even the Social Security Administration says: the Court, it seemed, got the message and suddenly shifted its course. Beginning with a set of decisions in March, April and May 1937 (including the Social Security Act cases) the Court would sustain a series of New Deal legislation, producing a constitutional revolution in the age of Roosevelt. Further, the creation of the Social Security Administration in 1935 was an expansion of federal power, based on the Taxing Power of the Federal Government, initially set out in Article I, Sections 8 and 9of the Constitution, and expanded by the Sixteenth Amendment. While the sixteenth amendment is going to stand, that doesn't make it right (and for the "wing-nut view" search for Minnesota in this document to see what states may not have approved the amendment, or may have done so in violation of their state constitutions). An Expansion of Powers Even if Social Security is Constitutional, it means a huge expansion of the Federal Government. I don't like that idea. The problem with big government is that even when a problem is solved, such as the need for alcohol-enforcement agents at the end of prohibition, government seldom shrinks. Those agents who should have been dumped at the end of prohibition in 1933 were given something to do with the passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934. Rather than doing away w...
