Today I stumbled across an article on the American Spectator’s website, entitled Democrats Renew Their War on America’s Youth, which read almost exactly like a chapter from our book. Not only does the article focus on the direct perils that not reforming Social Security would have on the young generation, but the rhetoric of the title specifically hits home the importance of the topic. Social Security reform is directly tied to the future well-being of America’s youth. The tension in this conflict is palpable.
The author, Philip Klein, mentions in particular the senate race in Nevada, where the stained incumbent, Harry Reid, has attacked budget hawks and proponents of reform to the biggest drain on our economy, Social Security. According to Klein, Reid is resorting to the “age-old tactic in his bid for re-election: scaring senior citizens.”
Similarly in our book, we write:
Politicians are reluctant to reform Social Security because it could jeopardize the current benefits that boomers are banking on for their retirements. Therefore, even the mention of reform could be political suicide. Old people have the highest percentage of voter turnout, because they receive a lot of money from the government at our expense and want to keep that money flowing in. Our parents are perfectly happy with PAYGO the way it is, simply because they will receive Social Security money shortly, but they are knowingly hanging us, their kids, out to dry. If young people put political pressure en masse on our representatives, they will be forced to take action. Our vote counts just as much as that of our parents’.
These two nearly identical opinions are critical when examining the upcoming crisis that we face as the young generation of Americans, that the irresponsibility of generations before us are in direct conflict with our future quality of life.
Social Security is nothing more than the largest Ponzi scheme ever inflicted upon man by the government. Today’s recipients of Social Security are only collecting benefits that are supplied by the existing workforce, not some account which boomers believe (at the government’s misguidance) that they have been accruing over their careers. We now are facing a huge flaw in the government mandated pyramid scheme; baby boomers are retiring at record levels, while the amount of workers supporting their retirements is shrinking.
When the first Social Security check was issued to lucky Ida Mae Fuller in 1940, there were 42 people working and paying into the fund for every retiree collecting money. By 2002 however, that ratio had fallen to 3.4 people working for each person collecting. The ratio is plummeting every year and will near 2:1 by 2020.
The only solution to ensure that we have any retirement funds available through Social Security is through the creation of private investment accounts. Instead of all working Americans lumping their money into a giant pile for the reckless government to squander, we need to take individual control over our retirement accounts and cut the Federal Government out of our retirements. The government has proven incapable to resist spending the supposed Social Security Trust Fund (long plundered), and privatizing Social Security will save us from staring at a pile of worthless IOUs.
We cover this problem in depth in our book, America’s Youth vs. Big Government, and much like the American Spectator’s piece on the topic, we believe that Social Security reform can not be delayed:
Our parents and their generation have knowingly left us with this problem, under the very same precept we have now adopted ourselves: that our politicians are smart and caring enough to make sure that everyone will get a fair slice of their American Dream for retirement. Who’s to think that our outcome will be any different from what our parents are finding out now? Our future financial security is not entitled to us, and if we sit back quietly ignoring this issue, our politicians will happily waste our money away.
This is a topic of utmost importance for the future of this country. It is up to us young Americans to stand up against politicians like Reid, who resist Social Security reform because of political career aspirations, not because of their dedication to us citizens.
Now available on Amazon.com