Saving Social Security circa 2012

I wrote this back in June 2012. It was printed in my local paper (RRStar) so it can be verified I did in fact write this back then. I am simply reproducing it here to allow folks to read my thoughts rather than through the paywall of my local newspaper … working on an updated version to reflect today

We have all heard the rumors that Social Security is on the verge of bankruptcy within the next decade or so. Currently, this is true if we do nothing.

It frustrates me when politicians and certain ideologues at the local and national levels use the present problems of Social Security as reasons to simply privatize or eliminate it all together. They call it an “entitlement” when the truth is that Social Security is a pre-paid insurance program. There was a time not long ago when a politician who dared speak about getting rid of Social Security would no longer have a political career to look forward to.

Today, Paul Ryan, R-Wis., comes up with a budget that practically erases Social Security as a pre-paid, publicly funded social safety net and opens it up to eventual privatization (a prospect over which Wall Street salivates), and he is awarded with rumors of a potential vice presidential nomination.

I, for one, am tired of this Republican pattern of “tackling” problems by eliminating them instead of working to solve them through legitimate fixes. Preserving Social Security forever would be an easy fix. Republicans want to raise the retirement eligibility age to 70. I say lower it to 60.

By doing this you accomplish two immediate benefits: You likely take several million aging workers out of the workforce, thus opening up millions of jobs for the younger generation, and you lower the unemployment rate by several points. Economics 101 states that as the labor market tightens, wages go up, and thus tax revenue goes up.

If the eligibility age is raised to 70, you are keeping millions working — millions who would rather simply retire and spend every penny they receive in Social Security benefits (an economic boon) — while you keep millions of younger people and college graduates desperately looking for a job continually desperate.

An additional benefit to lowering the eligibility age to 60 is the drop in people suddenly no longer in need of welfare and food stamps. (Talk about shrinking the size of government.)

Further, we should remove the cap currently set at about $109,000 to affect all earned and unearned income; it is beyond the pale that someone who earns a billion pays no more toward Social Security than one who makes $109,000.

Cutting the Social Security tax in half from 5.65 percent to 2.83 percent — an automatic tax cut for every single person making $109k or less, not to mention your employer. Then double the current amounts given to each retiree up and down the entire scale, another economic boon. These are common-sense fixes to help save one of the greatest systems ever devised.