The Lies About Social Security

The Lies About Social Security

Every four years – the Presidential years – the Democrats roll out the same Big Lie. The lie that the Republicans are out to steal social security and put the elderly in dire straights. Some times its ads with the tired faces of women in Appalachia. Other times its pictures of ruthless Republicans pushing Grandma of a cliff in a wheel chair. And still others that suggest without saying that the Republicans need the money to give to richest among us. It is all baloney. Not a single word is true and not a single instance of the Republicans pushing legislation to reduce or eliminate benefits is ever cited. There is no proof to this Big Lie precisely because it is a lie. Joseph Goebbels is alleged to have said:

“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”

And later he emphasized:

“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.”

And that defines the delusion that causes Democrats to keep returning to that tired old accusation. They actually believe it – believe it without a shred of evidence – believe it despite the passage of over half a century during which there has not been a single instance in the Congressional record of a bill brought to the floor in either house which has the effect of diluting or diminishing the benefits to those entitled to receive Social Security retirement benefits.

But they believe the Big Lie and apparently there is no turning back for them.

And as long as we are on the subject, we probably ought to discuss some other allegations about Social Security.

First there is no Socials Security “fund.” In fact there are no investments securing the future benefits of the program. When Congress – and by this I mean both houses of Congress and both parties saw the amount of money that was being collected under the illusion of the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) they knew they had found a source of significant funds to finance the whim and caprice of the members of Congress. Congress took the money that had originally been set aside and all future revenue that FICA would produce and treated it just like all other revenues available to the General Fund. They didn’t even replace it with government bonds or other evidence of indebtedness choosing instead to make a vague promise to make the retirement payments so long as there were “adequate” funds available.

The Social Security fund is not going broke. Since there is no “fund” it, by definition cannot go broke. The best that can be said is that there is an inadequate amount being collected from the FICA tax to meet the current obligations for payments. That is or is not true depending on whether Social Security is just paying for Old Age and Survivor benefits or the myriad of other social welfare programs that have been attached to Social Security over time.

Elon Musk had claimed that Social Security is a giant Ponzi scheme. He is one hundred percent right but he is not the first to promote this fact. I did it over a decade ago and I was hardly in the vanguard. I did in conjunction with a rough hewn study I did to show that if the amount paid into FICA by employers and employees had been invested in government bonds or better yet funds mirroring the Standard & Poors index that benefits would have been materially greater over both the short and the long run. Mr. Musk did me one better because he has better computers, and he actually knows how to use them, to demonstrate that if just one half of the FICA payments had been invested similarly not only would there be no speculation about the fund going broke but there would be a recognition that the fund would be trillions of dollars in the black.

But back to the Ponzi scheme. The authors of the Social Security Act justified its creation by noting that the population would grow faster as new people entered the work force than those who reached retirement benefit age and thus there would “always” be more money coming in than going out – the very definition of a Ponzi scheme. And that was true until it wasn’t. New entrants to the work force no longer greatly exceed the number of those reaching retirement age. In fact, Mr. Musk noted that Western civilization is in decline because the birth rate no longer produces a growing population. And just like other Ponzi schemes when the concentration of existing suckers depending on the next sucker exceeds the existing sucker the scheme collapses in a catastrophic manner. Those Democrats howling about Republicans seeking to loot Social Security would be better served by looking at the burden of other welfare programs that have been heaped on Social Security directly and indirectly in terms of the troubling effect they will have on senior citizens.

And finally reducing the cost of administering Social Security does not mean that benefits will be curtailed. Rather, in fact, it enhances the longevity of Social Security by limiting the costs of administering it. And that is precisely what Mr. Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency are pursuing no matter how hard the Democrats try to deflect.

Finally, however, if you have accepted the Big Lie about Republicans looking to pillage Social Security there is no hope that you will ever belief anything written here today. You will descend into delusions much like my neighbor who has now taken to flying the American flag upside down because Donald Trump is once again President of the United States of America. And we just laugh.