Keep the trust in the Security

Let me offer you a deal. I will decide how much of your income you have to pay me every year, with the right to increase the amount any time I want. I will tell you how many years you have to pay me and with the right to later add on more years. At the end of all this, I will decide just how much of this money I will give you back.

Sounds like a great deal, doesn’t it! No pushing and shoving to get into line to sign up. In fact, no need to get into line at all. I will make it a law and you will have to join whether you want to or not. And thus was Social Security born.

Today, one would think that for someone to “buy into” that system they would have to be very dumb or extremely naive. But times were very different. The economy was in shambles.

Large numbers of elderly were destitute and their families were in no position to help them. And, most significantly, the overwhelming majority of the public trusted the federal government.

Still, it sounds like a perfect recipe for disaster. But, it worked! Social problems such as the elderly living out their last few years in abject poverty has all but disappeared. Working families are no longer faced with having to decide between supporting their parents and providing for their children’s education.

As it turns out, despite political raids on the Social Security Fund, tinkering with the rates, etc., the trust in government has, to a large extent, been vindicated. Yes, it is true that every few years we need to increase the rates and the burden on the younger workers has increased. But if these younger workers had to pick up the total cost and responsibility of supporting their elders, they might realize that their Social Security payments are still a bargain. The whole intergenerational war is based on the false premise that, one, without Social Security payments younger workers would have fewer expenses and two, that they can no longer trust the government, so when it is their turn to collect, there will not be any money in the fund for payments.

While we all agree that the system could be run more efficiently and that there are some minor changes that can lead to increased productivity, basically the system isn’t broke!

So why all the uproar and the orchestrated cries for a complete overhaul of the system and who is instigating this need?

Well, it goes back to the very start, when the Roosevelt haters labeled Social Security, a communist plot to destroy Democracy and the free-enterprise system. Complete total “laissez faire” is perfection and government is the problem. Or put another way, there are all these wealthy power brokers, rich bankers, industry tycoons, etc., with their noses pressed up against the glass and unable to get their hands on all this money. Just think how much richer and more productive they could be if they could just get their hands on this vast amount of money and, yes, there just might be some trickle down for the average working person.

So how does one go about breaking down the wall of protection. Step one is already well under way. Convince the general public that the way the system as currently structure means that the elderly are stealing the younger generation’s inheritance.

Step two, that the only way the younger generation can save itself is to siphon off some of this money and put it into the hands of private industry.

Unfortunately, I am old enough to remember that these were the same people who caused the financial crisis that brought about the need for Social Security in the first place.

The ultra wealthy just used the crash as an opportunity to lay-off workers and buy up everything in sight, for pennies on the dollar. Have they changed their spots and would they now put the needs of the country above their own greed?

Are they really more trustworthy than the government? Or is it that they are now the government?

In any case, do what must be done to preserve Social Security, but at all costs, keep the protective wall between the people’s money and big business.

Dr. Hal Goodman lives in Eastport.