The Real Social Security Crisis

Social Security will be bankrupt in 2037.
FDR signed Social Security into law to protect anyone who earned a living against the poverty of old age and the loss of a job. Ever since, the Republicans have wanted to dismantle Social Security. Witness the failed Republican attempt under President George Bush to privatize Social Security (imagine if they had, all that money would be gone, stolen by the corporate crooks on Wall Street).

The whole idea behind the Republican façade of “less government“, is to bankrupt the federal government so that social programs like Social Security and Medicare become insolvent.

In 1981 President Reagan increased the Social Security tax to 12.4 percent split between employers and employees while decreasing taxes on the wealthy, the Republican idea of good governance. We were told the increased taxes were to create a nest egg for when the baby boomers retired. Now we’re being told as the boomers retire, it’ll create a financial tsunami.

The “crisis” facing Social Security is that presidents and Congress have “borrowed” from the trust fund leaving an IOU with a promise to pay back the money when Social Security benefits come due. Now that pay back time is arriving, the funds are not there for the ‘government’ to pay back its obligation to the tax payers.

All of this leaves the president in a difficult position. If he doesn’t gut benefits, he’ll be labeled a tax and spend liberal. If he does gut benefits, then he’s not standing up for the American citizen to whom that money rightly belongs.

The worrisome part is that we’re now hearing this administration talk of reforming “entitlement programs”. Will the president stand up for the American people or will he back down as he did on cutting farm subsidies to agri-business and eliminating off shore tax havens. As soon as the howls of opposition went up in DC and in the corporate world, the president backed down.

The corporate crooks on Wall Street stole peoples’ pensions and the government stole everyone’s’ Social Security money that we‘ve paid for with every single paycheck we‘ve ever earned. Why do you think the Founders of our country had a strong distrust of banks and governments? So much so that they revolted and it’s high time we do the same.