Harry Targ
(This is an old story but the privatizers still want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs based on lies and distortions. HT).
The Lafayette, Indiana Journal and Courier, a Gannett Newspaper, printed an Associated
Press story, Monday, August 13, on the front page above the fold, entitled
“Little Security for Program’s Payouts.” It warned that Social Security would
be in financial crisis by 2033.
The $2.7 trillion surplus in the fund, the story
suggested “is starting to look small.” The
story did admit that for thirty years the social security fund received more in
taxes than it paid out to eligible recipients. But it raised the fear that the
balance sheet would undoubtedly change in the future. In addition, the story
indirectly blamed Social Security for federal deficits by suggesting that
“surpluses also helped mask the size of the budget deficit being generated by
the rest of the federal government.”
The story reported projections of Social Security
shortfalls of $7 trillion by 2086. And if 75 years of shortfalls are added up,
adjusted for inflation, that would amount to $30.5 trillion dollars. By my
calculation in today’s dollars that would reduce the feasibility of engaging in
ten Iraq magnitude wars!
Before readers, particularly the young, freak out
after reading this story, they should access on the web a report entitled “A
Young Person’s Guide to Social Security” from the Economic Policy Institute
study (www.epi.org) prepared in collaboration with the National Academy of
Social Insurance (www.nasi.org). The report summarizes the history of Social Security,
its goals, its payment structure, and the long-term projections of its economic
stability.
Among the prominent generalizations that are derived
from the report are the following:
-The Social Security program has been the most
cost-effective program ever developed by the United States government. Less
than one percent of payments into the program are used for its administration.
-The Social Security program is an insurance program
paid for through payroll taxes workers and their employers pay in equal
proportions.
-The Social Security program provides benefits to
participants who have paid into the program for at least ten years. Those
entitled to benefits are retirees over 62 years of age, persons with sustained
disabilities, and orphans and widows of insured workers.
-Social Security has been the most effective program
the United States government ever adopted for lifting workers out of poverty.
“In 2010 it lifted 20.3 million Americans out of poverty, 14 million of whom
were seniors.”
-Without Social Security half of America’s senior
citizens would live in poverty as opposed to the one in ten who are in poverty
today. From 1959 to the present the percentage of the elderly who lived in
poverty dropped from over 35 percent to nine percent.
-Even though the U.S. economy has experienced
multiple economic crises since the foundation of Social Security, payments to
eligible recipients have never been postponed or arrived late.
-Social Security is funded by “dedicated revenue
sources;” that is payroll taxes, interest on the trust fund and taxes on high
income earners who are also social security recipients.
-Current Social Security payroll taxes are
regressive in the sense that the “tax cap” currently is $110,000. No payroll
taxes in excess of that figure are assessed. (The report compares the 2012
salary of a police official in Miami Beach ($175,000) with NBA star LeBron
James ($16 million). Both pay the same dollar amount of Social Security payroll
tax).
The EPI/NASI list possible policy changes that could
address the temporary short-falls in Social Security receipts that may occur at
various times between 2033 and 2070).
These include raising the payroll tax rate, raising
the “tax cap” so James pays more on his $16 million salary than those earning a
tenth of his salary, or extending the pool of workers--such as some state and
local government employees-- who would be eligible and thus contributors
to the program.
In addition, social security statisticians point out
that the spike in upcoming social security recipients, the so-called “baby
boomers,” will flatten out with declining birth rates.
The addition of Congressman Paul Ryan to the Romney
ticket is cause for the rekindling of the far-right agenda to privatize social
security, which given the recent economic crisis would have been a disaster for
millions of senior citizens. Former President Bush had proposed the
privatization of Social Security in 2005 but withdrew his proposal because of
massive public resistance.
Media conglomerates from Gannett, the Associated
Press, and their home town affiliates have been ready and waiting to scare the
American people again. And, like Iraq’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction,”
this new campaign is designed to overcome the overwhelming resistance of the
American people to changing the most successful U.S. government program in
history.
And the targeted population is young people who the Right
wishes to set in conflict with their elders.
Of course, the fear merchants will not raise the specter of young
people, jobless and poor, having to support their elders who may slip into
poverty because their loved ones no longer have insured retirement benefits.
It is a scary prospect for young and old alike. All
the more reason for building a progressive coalition to fight the rightwing
assault on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all the other programs that
help everyone but the one percent.
