Social Security and my personal time capsule
What bothers me about my future, what wakes me up at night in a cold sweat, is not that social security will not be there for me when I retire, but that it WILL be there. I'm worried that in 50 years, I'll be 75 years old and eligible for the first time for social security. And that this dinosaur of a program, the T-Rex of big-government money-burning plans, will somehow still be in place. I shudder at this is because I cannot imagine the cost of making this happen. I wonder under how much debt will my children and grandchildren be burdened so that I can have a paycheck from the government. I try to speculate about the debt we have accumulated as a nation to provide social security for my generation.
Franklin Roosevelt enacted a way to provide everyone in the country, from infants to seniors, with a secure retirement system. Unfortunately, these entitlements would ultimately be paid by those yet to be born. When you never meet these people, when they are "what ifs" and "maybes," when they don't even exist, it's easy to mortgage their futures for a living, breathing, voting populace. Those "what ifs" exist now, and they're us. And we have to end it.
WE are the ones who have to do it. Don't expect Washington, deathly afraid of the AARP's watchful eye in these matters, to intervene on our behalves. Current seniors have paid into the system their whole lives and just want to get some of it back before they die. Who could blame them? Baby Boomers are starting to get nervous about it and are taking every dollar they can find and shoving them into mutual funds, hoping for big returns as retirement age starts to approach. They know there might not be much there for them from Uncle Sam. However, if they can figure a way of getting more from the government, you'd better believe that they'll do it. The battle cry has echoed across the country, "Save social security!"
Not if I have anything to do with it. I'm 25 years old and, so I've been told, have my whole life ahead of me. But why then, in the land of the free, home of the brave, are my retirement decisions being made for me by two generations of politicians desperate to overpopulate Florida on my dime? We've got to end it.
Whenever a long-standing institution ends, someone down the line gets the short end of the stick. If a man paid $500 for a slave, and then slavery ended, he's out $500 with nothing to show for it. We as a nation finally recognized that slavery was wrong and decided to do something about it. Would it have been right to keep the institution just so that everyone got their money's worth? This is a ludicrous question and has an obvious answer. Of course we can't directly compare social security to slavery. To do so seriously would be an injustice to all those who have endured slavery or have suffered its aftereffects. My point is, however, that both systems are do people harm and should be stopped at all costs. Throwing good money after bad to keep an institution going is no way to solve the core issue of having an inherently bad system.
This IS a bad system, not just in practice, but in principle, and let me tell you why. Many will say that, yes it has its flaws but it is needed because so many people do not have other options when they retire. To this I say more options would be available to us were we not encumbered with paying such a high percentage of our incomes into this particular program. Wage earners, whether we always act like it or not, are adults, and as adults in a free country we should have the right to invest ALL of our retirement money as we see fit. Think of what your financial portfolio might look like if you could invest all the money you currently put towards social security into private funds.
If the government can more effectively plan and pay for our retirement than we can do on our own, then they might as well employ us all and tell us which jobs we are best suited for and how long we should stay at each one. After all, when left to the free market, while most people find jobs, others do not. Just like most people will plan for retirement and others will not. It is only due to social conditioning that one idea seems ludicrous and the other not.
People will slip through the cracks. There's no doubt about it. But let's deal with those who are unwilling or unable to provide for their own retirement as a separate issue. We should not be sacrificing the good of the majority so that we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we can plan a system that works for everybody. Because we can't. Besides, social security only pays out to those who put in. A lot of poor people don't put in, so saving social security for them is moot. That's a welfare issue and that's separate.
Now again, we see that FDR's spectacles did not give him much foresight. He implemented a program from which there is no easy exit. My sleeve is caught in some lumber machinery, and it's pulling me towards the blade. If I try to pull it out it's going to take my hand, then my arm, and then my whole body. The only logical thing to do here is take off the shirt. Cut my losses.
We've got to do the same thing. We can't just stop paying it because we can't afford to have our grandparents move in with us right now. Yes, the dollars you put in are supposed to be invested for you for your retirement, but we all know that the net effect is every dollar you pay goes into some old codger's wallet. But how long can we continue to do this? Who is going to pay for us when we are old codgers? The answers are: not much longer, and I don't know about you, but I'm going to pay for myself.
I am not a rich person. My parents aren't rich. There are no rich uncles that I know of. I don't play the lottery. If I have two nickels to rub together, I do it, hoping they multiply. However, I do have the hope that somewhere down the line I will be able to afford to pay for my own retirement, and if I can't I'll know that I was dealt a decent hand in life and it's no one's fault but mine if I'm a pauper at age 75. But I'd like to think that I've still got a shot at being a prince. Nowhere but America would someone be able to say that. Nowhere else do people have as good a chance of making their own successes. We are only endowed by our creator with the right of the PURSUIT of happiness. That's all we need.
I'd like every Generation Xer reading this to think about the following scenario and ask your friends and co-workers what they'd do. I am willing to sign on the dotted line right now and say that I forfeit all future claims for social security income, but will continue to pay social security taxes at the current rate for the next ten years, after which I will be fully exempt. No more social security payments by the age of 35. I would bet that most of my generation would say the same thing.
However, if we went to congress with every one of our signatures on a mile-long scroll, each one of us pledging ten years of taxes to buy our way out of the system, we all know what would happen. Nothing. And the reason why nothing would happen, although no one would say it to your face, is that it's not enough. Deep down we know that's true, and when put in that perspective, it gives a pretty clear picture of what kind of system we have to deal with, and what kind of massive buyout might be required.
Well what is enough? That's what we all need to know. We're a generation that wants to clear our debts and move on, and make our own successes and failures, without letting someone else fail for us. What I want is to stand before the President and Congress and the AARP on behalf of our generation and say, "We don't want any. How much will it cost to end it?" If we could get a straight, honest answer to that question (I'm young and allowed to indulge in fantasy), then we could deal with it. I'm not saying we could afford it, but we could at least get started in taking care of it. The next two generations might end up having to pay for some of it. However, we will have drawn a line in the sand, saying social security ended back there, and here's the future.
Despite what Hollywood and Madison Avenue want you to believe, Generation X is not about skateboarding, body piercing and the Seattle sound. Most of us actually have more intelligent questions to ask the President than "If you had to do it all over again, would you inhale?" We need to show the world that we are a hard-working, intelligent generation that wants to make a difference. The way we can make a difference is to make some noise, plant some seeds for the future, and show we mean business as voting body.
There are harsh realities in this world that we need to come to grips with and handle ourselves, and we can't be afraid to do so. Mary Poppins is a senior citizen now. And we'll take our medicine without a spoonful of sugar.
Strangely, I think the part that I least recognize now is the strong identification with my generation. At any rate, it was a nice stroll down memory lane, but an unpleasant reminder that despite many years of GOP control of the White House and Congress, we've made zero progress in the intervening decade.
Comments