There's been a lot of loose talk among conservatives recently about Social Security.
Social security is simply the way Americans have decided to pitch in together and make sure that our elderly and disabled don't end up starving on the streets.
This isn't surprising, since the people who sponsor the right-wing propaganda machine are generally both wealthy and unscrupulous.
They would very much like to elimate anything that makes the middle class stable enough to feel like fighting them politically.
The basic argument they make is something like that old joke about the restaurant: "The food there is awful—and the portions are way too small!"
- It's somehow dishonest and wrong—a "Ponzi scheme".
- It's going to go broke too soon—it won't be around for our grandchildren.
The first charge is simply absurd. Consider the following definition:
Ponzi scheme: a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation.
There are other wordings, but I got this one from someone who agrees with the propaganda.
It only takes a second to see that the definition doesn't apply:
- Social Security is not "fraudulent": it is clear to everyone exactly how it works. We pay money into it while we are young, which goes to help the disabled and the elderly who can't work, and in return we count on those who are working when we end up disabled or elderly to fund the same program for us.
The only way this could be fraudulent is if somewhere down the line someone (oh, say... a Republican) were to try to dismantle the system.
That would constitute fraud. - Social security is not an "investment operation": no one expects to get rich off it. It isn't designed to increase anyone's capital. It's designed to provide security if or when we end up unable to earn a living.
- There is no "individual or organization" running the operation and stealing the investors money. We, the people of the United States, run the operation through our elected representatives, and the payouts all go back to us.
Social security is simply the way Americans have decided to pitch in together and make sure that our elderly and disabled don't end up starving on the streets.
In fact, no one would even think of buying the "Ponzi" lie if it weren't for the second lie being sold with it—the idea that Social Security is about to go broke.
This is aimed a young people, to undermine their confidence in the system and get them to buy into the plans to dismantle it.
But it just isn't true. In fact the system simply needs a minor adjustment sometime within the next twenty years to keep right on working the way it has for the last seventy.
There's more than one way to make that minor adjustment, but one of those ways seems particularly fair.
Next: One way to fix Social Security
(with a pretty graph!)
