Ron Paul: Why the Government Lies About Social Security

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Why the Government Lies About Social Security

by Ron Paul

Perhaps the biggest media story of 2010 was the influence of Tea Party voters on the Congressional landscape. The new Congress comes to Capitol Hill with a mandate to end profligate spending and restore fiscal sanity in Washington, we are told. But when the House and Senate convene in January the newly elected members will face tremendous pressure to maintain spending levels for entitlement programs. Even the most modest proposals to trim Social Security or Medicare spending will be met with howls of indignation and threats of voter revolt. Legislators who propose any kind of means testing or increased retirement ages can expect angry visits from senior citizens and lobbyists ready to fund a candidate back home who supports the status quo.

But millions of Americans now realize that the status quo is an illusion that will not last even another 10 or 20 years. The federal government cannot continue to spend a trillion dollars more than it collects in revenue each year because we are running out of creditors. Fiscal reality is setting in and the consequences may be grim, even if Congress finds the courage to take decisive action now.

Courage begins with a commitment to see things as they are, rather than how we wish they were. When it comes to Social Security we must understand that the system does not represent an old age pension, an insurance program or even a forced savings program. It simply represents an enormous transfer of payment with younger workers paying taxes to benefit the other beneficiaries. There is no Social Security trust fund and you don't have an account. Whether you win or lose the Social Security lottery is a function of when you happen to be born and how long you live to collect benefits. Of course young people today have every reason to believe they will never collect those benefits.

Notice that neither political party proposes letting people opt out of Social Security, which exposes the lie that your contributions are set aside and saved. After all, if your contributions are really set aside for your retirement, the money is there earning interest, right? If your money is in your account, what difference would it make if your neighbor chooses not to participate in the program?

The truth of course is that your contributions are not put aside. Social Security is a simple tax. Like all taxes, the money collected is spent immediately as general revenue to fund the federal government. But no administration will admit that Social Security is nothing more than an accounting ledger with no money. You will collect benefits only if future tax revenues remain high. The money you paid into the system is long gone.

My hope is that at least some members of the new Congress will cut through the distortions to see Social Security as it really is. The best way to fix the impending Social Security crisis is also the simplest: Allow younger individuals to opt out of the program and use their tax savings to invest privately as they see fit. This is the true private solution. Your money has never been safe in the government's hands and it never will be.

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Ron Paul is America's leading voice for limited, constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, a return to sound monetary policies, and a sensible foreign policy that puts America first.

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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ron paul
• social security
• lies
• taxes
• congress
• news
• politics
• spending
• entitlements
• medicare

[recalcitrist1]

Let's see if I got this straight. It's against the law to tell a government official a lie, but it's ok for the government to lie to “we the people"....constantly!

What kind of double standard is this? The truth is that we're not really free, and the American way is not really about liberty and justice for all; that’s just another lie.

Our entire society is based on lies and UN-truth, and they're never going to admit ONE lie because they know they'll have to answer to all of the other lies.

[HemiHead66]

I'm so sick of hearing his bullshit. There is a way to fix Social Security and Medicare, get rid of this fucking Mafia Govt. that has been robbing the shit out of us. These fuckers took Defense spending from 200+ billion a year before those bogus attacks on 9,11, to 1+ trillion a year today. That's where our retirement is being spent, on crony contracts for their fucking friends. And on massive tax breaks for the rich. Fuck, those multi-nationals don't even pay taxes. Time to clean house!

[Laughingblades]

@ItsAllAboutGuitar umadcuznosocialdarwinism?

tummyhurt?

[ItsAllAboutGuitar]

@Laughingblades READ THE WIKI!!! "Although administered by the Social Security Administration,[2] SSI is funded from the U.S. Treasury general funds,[1] not the Social Security trust fund."

Arrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh. Talking to you is like talking to Lumburgh. You respond to things I DIDN'T EVER SAY!!!

I need a pepto bismol.

[Laughingblades]

@ItsAllAboutGuitar :p Yes yes, paying our veterans and providing rent for the elderly and disabled is a Ponzi Scheme. Social Darwinism and chance charity is just so much better. There's no way we could do SSI properly.

[ItsAllAboutGuitar]

@Laughingblades He said "THE MONEY ISN'T IN THE COFFERS!!!" I never said the US government was broke because of SSI. I'd bet that disabled people who need money are a tiny fraction of the US budget.

I will however say that Social Security is a ponzi scheme and I would opt out right now even though I've paid in for over 20 years now.

It's obvious what the problems are with the US deficit problems. It's just that most don't care.

[Laughingblades]

@ItsAllAboutGuitar You're misrepresenting the context significantly. He's talking about the threat of a congressional shutdown and what it would do if the staffers weren't there to send out the checks.

And the US Government isn't broke because of SSI, taking away veteran's pensions and old/disabled people's rent checks isn't going to fix our economy. You've let corporations trick you into blaming entitlements.

[ItsAllAboutGuitar]

@Laughingblades The wording wasn't 100%. Fine. "I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."

The US government is broke and can't make good on any promise. You can demagogue all you like, but it's not going to change that fact. Any dollar spent on SSI is money taken from someone else, and who knows what that dollar may have been spent on. It may have been MORE noble.

[Laughingblades]

@ItsAllAboutGuitar Yah that doesn't say what you said it says, sorry.

And like I said, every dollar spent on SSI there's a net stimulus effect and SSI could be funded indefinitely by removing the capital gains cap or by redirecting some of the mostly wasted military funding. On the one hand we could continue digging ditches just to fill them up, on the other we could provide food and housing for our elderly, disabled, and veterans.

Or we could have social darwinism.

[ItsAllAboutGuitar]

@Laughingblades Search "politifact obama july 12 2011" on google. It's the first one to come up.

[Laughingblades]

@ItsAllAboutGuitar Both