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JANUARY 9, 2004 –
Social Security
is not an entitlement program. In fact, Social Security is not
truly a program of any kind.
Social Security
is a documenting of a basic reality about America: that the people
of America can not and will never in good conscience allow our
elderly, regardless of the reason, to lie homeless on the streets.
Social Security
is a basic admission on the part of our society that we have certain
basic moral values. While younger people many of us believe should
stand or fall on their own, as they are fit to fend for themselves,
those among us who are too old to work can not be left to suffer
without hope for the rest of their lives without food or shelter.
Some may have invested poorly, some may never have earned enough to
have a chance to save the amount necessary. Whatever the reason,
being the good and God-fearing nation we are, it is not possible for
us to simply laugh and spit at the elderly man or woman who is
without means.
And so we
acknowledged this reality by setting up a program called Social
Security, the idea being that every elderly person be guaranteed a
minimal stipend that assures everyone of at least the basics of food
and shelter.
This is never
going to change. At no point are we going to become so cold and
amoral a nation that we will be okay turning a cold shoulder to a
ninety-year old woman lying on a cardboard box, accepting that it is
her own fault for not investing or earning better.
With this in
mind, there is only one way to proceed in the debate about Social
Security: to acknowledge this reality, and so understand that what
must be accomplished is ensuring that every elderly American will
continue to received a guaranteed stipend to provide for basic
survival forever.
To talk about
the program going bankrupt, about setting up some-win-some-lose
private investment accounts, or about reducing guaranteed benefits
are to misunderstand what is being discussed. The discussion is not
about a retirement savings program. It is not about a pension
program. It is not about a government entitlement program that can
be reduced.
It is a
discussion simply about the acknowledgement of a basic moral
principle of our nation and how to fulfill it.
People on both
sides of the issue currently talk about something called a
“surplus.” In the next breath they talk about when the program will
“run out of money.”
Anyone who talks
about a “surplus” in Social Security revenue is so entirely
incompetent or dishonest they should resign immediately. It is like
saying when you get your paycheck, “Wow, we have such a cash
surplus, let’s run to Vegas this weekend and enjoy all of our
surplus money,” ignoring the fact that the rent, electric bill, and
car payment are due next week.
How can a
program that is supposedly going to run out of money have a
surplus? Of course it doesn’t. It is just receiving a paycheck now
that needs to be used for bills that are due a bit down the road.
Just because the bills are due next decade and not next week does
not mean they are not real. We know they are going to be due, we
know the paycheck we are getting now will be needed to pay them as
the income we will have then will not cover it, and so there is
clearly no such thing as a surplus, just temporary cash-on-hand.
All the
politicians, commentators, and others who talk about there currently
being a “surplus” are not credible sources to discuss the issue.
Anyone who talks
about private investment accounts, in which scenario it is
guaranteed some people will end up with too little money to live on,
is not credible to participate in the debate. They don’t comprehend
that the basic moral reality that led to the creation of Social
Security will never change, and so they will only be creating a
situation where the nation then has to set up Social Security for
those whose Social Security investments went bad. Keeping one
Social Security program going is challenge enough; making it so we
need a second, and going against the reality of the first, shows a
complete lack of credibility on the subject.
The only useful
discussions are those about how to ensure there is no lapse in the
full provision of benefits to all of our seniors.
People like WRKO-Boston
radio host Jay Diamond,
Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid, and others are offering one
possibility: addressing the fact that a loophole allows a number of
Americans to not have to pay Social Security taxes on their entire
salaries.
While most of us
have that 6.2% taken right off the top of everything we earn, this
is not the case for everyone. This 6.2% is only taken out on the
salary you earn up to $87,000. So for people earning over that,
they get a massive tax break of 6.2% on the rest of what they earn,
while the rest of us pay the 6.2% on every penny.
The Heritage
Foundation and other groups try to defend this setup, saying it was
historically how the program was set and so it should stay that
way. But these are the same people who then propose to replace
guaranteed benefits with win-or-lose private investment accounts,
who are okay with raising and raising the retirement age, and who
are for changing how payout benefits are figured so that what you
pay in no longer correlates to what you get in benefits by tying
benefits instead to a generic cost-of-living percentage rather than
what you pay in.
This is an
obvious fraud on the Heritage Foundation’s part and those who are
pushing their dishonest, falsely pious claims to be standing for
principle.
There also is
the reality, as Diamond, Reid, and others point out, that only
salary income gets the 6.2% taken in Social Security taxes. If your
income comes from something other than a paycheck, such as stock
gains, profits, or other income, you don’t have to pay these taxes
at all.
There is an
excellent discussion of this at
NathanNewman.org. He lays out the arguments and numbers in
great detail.
It is a
fundamental question: Why should some of us pay Social Security tax
on our entire incomes, but others not? The argument given in
response is that pay-in is supposed to relate to what you get back,
and so since benefits are capped, taxes should be capped. But with
the proposition that benefits should no longer be related to pay-in
being made by these same people, that no matter what you pay in you
should get a reduced benefit based simply on cost-of-living, that
would be out the window. And so clearly the people claiming to be
standing up for this principle and stating that this principle does
not allow any adjustment in how Social Security is administered is a
plain-faced lie.
The reality is
simple.
You have to
acknowledge what Social Security is: not an investment plan, not
something that it is possible to reduce or do away with, but an
acknowledgement of a basic moral reality about Americans.
You have to
acknowledge that there is no surplus, just some cash-on-hand, and
that anyone who has used the cash-on-hand that is needed for bills
to come due at a later date has been lying in order to steal,
pretending there is a “surplus” as justification to blow the
paychecks of our future seniors on a party today.
And so the
simple reality is that, A) Any taking of cash from Social Security
must be stopped immediately and any that has been taken repaid, as
that cash belongs to the people who paid it in for the sake of
receiving it at a later date; B) Social Security tax collection
must be re-scaled to allow for there to be adequate payout – this
may include a temporary raising of the cap or any other adjustment
necessary; C) No private investment account can ever have anything
to do with Social Security – Social Security is, by nature, required
to provide a minimal guaranteed income to all seniors, fulfilling
our inescapable moral position as a nation.
Discussions
about bankruptcy, reduced benefits, private investment accounts,
these numbers or that, are nonsensical and not discussions about
Social Security. They are discussions about some other government
retirement savings or pension program that does not currently exist.
Social Security is not a government retirement savings program, nor
a government retirement program of any sort. It is a basic
acknowledgement of our nation’s moral position that we never can or
will allow elderly men and women who have no chance to fend for
themselves to be left to live like animals lying in their own pee on
cardboard boxes without even the most minimal means with which to
obtain food or any of the other essentials.
NOTE: Special thanks to Jay
Diamond for helping gather info for this article. | 
