Let Me Out

Ask someone under 45 about their retirement plans and you might discover something disturbing. Of course if you yourself are under 45, it probably won’t come as any big surprise. The conversation of course will revolve around that person’s 401K savings and perhaps their company retirement account. In the wake of the retirement account scandals of the past few years, they might express concern about how their plan is being handled. Some people will of course have no plan or thoughts about it yet, but one thing tends to be the same when you talk about retirement: No one expects Social Security to be a factor. The general consensus seems to be that “it won’t be there when I’m ready to retire”.

It’s been this way for a number of years now. Social Security has become nothing more than another income tax to the younger generations in America. They believe that all their Social Security taxes will do is help pay for their parents and grandparents’ retirements, and they don’t necessarily even believe that. It’s really just another tax for our elected representation to piss away on jet fuel and unpopular programs.

The problems with Social Security have been well documented over the past 10 years, and yet nothing has been done about it. Every time someone comes up with a plan to change, adjust, or modify Social Security, it gets shot down and torn apart by those who will still benefit from the government funded retirement. Last year the President proposed raising the Social Security tax ceiling. Currently, only the first $90,000 of a person’s income is subject to Social Security tax. Leading congressmen, all of who earn more than $90,000 per year, immediately rejected this proposal. Why would they want to pay as high a percentage of their income into the program as the rest of us? There have also been proposals to privatize at least a portion of Social Security and let individuals control some of their government retirement in a manner similar to a 401K program. This of course has not been allowed to gain any momentum since that would take away the availability of the Social Security tax funds. Our Congressmen and Senators are certainly not going to give up any of the money that they can spend willy-nilly throughout the year.

Maybe it’s time to scrap the whole system. Perhaps we could make it voluntary. If the government offered to cash people out of Social Security at the face value of their total investment with no interest whatsoever, they might find out what the younger generations think of it. I believe that most people would be quite happy to give up a retirement plan they don’t expect to ever see in exchange for some hard earned cash. In fact if the government offered the ability to opt out altogether without any investment return, just the discontinuation of their payroll taxes, they might be surprised at how many people would be willing to give up what they’ve already paid in.

Social Security doesn’t play into my retirement plans. I wouldn’t hesitate to accept a lump sum payment of all that I’ve been taxed, and if they’d just let me out I’d be happy to go. The taxes that come out of my paycheck would do a lot more good in my 401K savings than in some politician’s back pocket.

Date Added: 28-01-2006