John Stossel describes the coming collapse of that famous third rail of American politics, Social Security. Excerpt:
This summer, interviewing people for my new video about Social Security’s coming bankruptcy, was the first time I had heard the majority of such a group say they were aware there is a problem. One said, “We’re already at a trillion dollars (deficit) … (I)t’s almost like a big Ponzi scheme.”
Actually, more like a pyramid scheme. Ponzi schemes secretly take your money. But the Social Security trick is written into the law — there for anyone who bothers to look.
Social Security isn’t the only hard choice ahead of us. Medicare will run out of money in just eight years. At that point, benefits will automatically be cut. Social Security hits its wall in 15 years.
Amazingly, as we approach this disaster, Democrats say — spend even more.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., proudly announced, “Nearly every Democrat in the United States Senate has voted in favor of expanding Social Security.”
How would they pay for it? “Raise taxes on the wealthy!” is the usual answer.
I tried that on Boccia: “Just raise taxes on the rich!”
“There isn’t enough money, even that the rich would have,” she countered, “to pay for the $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities.”
There’s an obvious answer, but it’s not one that anyone in either major political party is willing to implement.
Here is the U.S. Constitution. Note the Tenth Amendment, which states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So, the if the Constitution does not explicitly allow the Imperial government to do something, the Tenth Amendment prohibits it. Not that this has stopped the Imperial government from using the Constitution from asswipe since about 1900, but still.
The answer? Privatize Social Security. Do away, at last, with the insolvent shell game that is wrecking the Imperial budget. As a stepping stone, I’d be willing to negotiate a deal where the FICA withholding is still extracted (at figurative gunpoint) but that it goes into an actual personal account managed by the taxpayer.
Chile, as Mr. Stossel points out, saved their version of Social Security by doing just that. Why can’t we do it here?
The ideal answer would be for the Imperial government to stop the endless expansion of Imperial power and actually, you know, read the Constitution and abide by it (and it’s important to note that nothing in the Constitution prevents the several states from setting up their own versions of Social Security) but that’s probably too much to hope for.
