The leftist will probably show up soon with their obfuscations and half-truths:
1. Let’s raise the cap on income subject to the tax. That will fix SS.
2. SS projections are based on too-pessimistic assumptions given historical growth rates
3. SS was never meant to be an income program, it’s an insurance program
4. SS privatization is just a sop to Wall Street, which will get paid a % of the assets
5. Given the market’s volatility, it isn’t safe enough for people to put their SS money into
6. People can’t be trusted to make their own decisions with their money
7. SS is the most popular government program
8. SS can be fixed by a combination of gradually raising taxes and raising the retirement age
Did I miss any? Of course, these are all somewhat true, but miss the bigger picture which is that SS is a Ponzi scheme that denies millions of Americans the ability to build a nest egg that they can leave to turn into an annuity for themselves upon retirement or leave to their heirs. If the government replaced SS with some sort of regulated savings program (you could only invest in “plain-vanilla” index funds, for example), the financial wealth built would be far more than that built by investing in Treasury bonds, which is the current situation.
The reason SS is so popular is because not one person in 100 thinks, when getting their monthly SS check, “If only I’d been able to invest at 5% returns during my working life rather than the 4% the government returned, this check would be almost 2/3 bigger than it is”. Do the math yourself and that’s with only a 1% annual return difference over a 50 year working lifespan. The real number is probably closer to 2%.
