Today’s article is a guest post written by William Sullivan. Enjoy!
As we Americans mull over the issues and implications of the upcoming election, riots litter the streets in France over the controversial decision to increase the retirement age for collecting government benefits.
Though physically distant, the current events across the pond are not so distant from our own potential reality. Sure, we collect social security five years later in this country and work longer days, but we share with France an undeniable unfunded liability in our Social Security Trust Fund. And like them, we have to do something to amend the broken system.
The very notion of social security, as we know it, has a fundamental Achilles’ heel that must be addressed. Given the significant increases in life expectancy in the last century, the success of social security is dependent upon population growth to ensure future funding. But thanks to rapid urbanization and industrialization, population growth has become an unlikely assumption in developed nations. In the agrarian societies of previous centuries, children provided an economic benefit, whereas today they are largely viewed as economic burdens. The result is that far fewer children are being born to pay into the system, while far more elderly people are collecting benefits for extended periods of time. So for the system to continue functioning as it is currently designed, either the fewer children will have to pay more, or the plentiful elderly will have to take less.
But in 2010, neither of those options is acceptable. Americans are wary about the prospect of higher taxes in any form, and the elderly certainly don’t want to compromise their benefits. So a restructuring of the system is necessary. But Democrats, now a majority in Congress, take historical pride in Social Security, and refuse to believe that the socialistic traits of the system are the reason for its failure. But in the coming November elections, there is a glimmer of hope that Social Security reform could become a reality, as some of the more prominent champions of social entitlement in Congress are on the verge of riding the rail out of Washington.
The most prominent of these is likely Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But her position as a Congresswoman appears nearly untouchable, fortressed from political harm by the inhabitants of San Francisco, a Mecca for American collectivists who cherish the socialistic benevolence that Social Security implies. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been another staunch roadblock on the path to Social Security reform, and he seems to have lost favor with his electorate. His seat is well-contested, and the time has come to clear this obstruction.
Republican Sharron Angle is running against incumbent Harry Reid of Nevada in the mid-term election. And regarding Social Security, Angle runs plainly on the stance that Congress should redeem the “IOUs that have been written to the Social Security Trust Fund, and then put[ting] that money in a lockbox that cannot ever be raided by Washington politicians. The only way we pay for that is by cutting spending.”
Harry Reid has repeatedly claimed that Angle will “kill Social Security.” But that’s not really how the above statement reads, is it? Most Americans would recognize that Angle’s stated goal is to “protect Social Security” by trimming fat elsewhere in the national budget to replace the money that Washington has stolen from the Social Security Trust Fund, thereby ensuring short-term solvency so that Americans who have paid into the system receive their return-on-investment. Since Reid thinks this is a bad idea, we can assume that he would like to ignore the Social Security shortfall, spend even more on benefits, and allow Washington to continue having the ability to raid the Social Security piggybank to meet its considerable obligations.
Sharron Angle seems to have a much better grasp on how to make Social Security solvent for retirees, at least in the eyes of reasonable taxpayers. They understand the logic in spending less to meet financial obligations, as compared to the consensus of the current Democratic administration that seems to think, as Joe Biden put it , “We have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt.”
Angle’s plan can help ensure that short-term benefits are paid to Social Security collectors. But if there are fundamental factors like life expectancy and birth rate that caused our current shortfall in Social Security, how do we amend the system to ensure that future generations can benefit from their investment?
Sharron Angle is one of the few voices heralding what we must do: individualize American retirement. Give our citizens the option to take their mandatory retirement contributions out of the hands of Washington, and force our politicians to relinquish the power to control how our retirement funds shall be spent.
Career Democratic Congressmen like Harry Reid suffer from a delusion that makes them believe that a handful of people in Washington can manage monstrous, unfathomable amounts of money and investments better than one American can manage his own. Of course, that makes absolutely no sense, but slick rhetoric has somehow made it plausible for Americans. Democrats, beginning with FDR, presented an amazingly complex, fundamentally flawed system as a simple pay-and-receive community bucket, necessary for social welfare and the greater good. They convinced Americans that allowing the government a right to our property would protect us against financial ruin, only to have Congress steal our property to spend wherever it pleased.
Washington has failed, and it is time for real change. It is a simple matter of property and liberty. Our money is our property, and we should have the liberty to do with it what we please. Sharron Angle is a leading voice in spreading that important message as it pertains to Social Security reform.
The race in Nevada is perhaps the most important election of 2010. Certainly, the symbolism inherent in Harry Reid’s political demise is a key factor in its importance, as toppling such a prominent proponent of federal expansion would signify Americans’ desire to return to the values of limited government and individual liberty. Central in the dichotomy between expansive and limited government is the debate over Social Security. Sharron Angle must emerge victorious in this race to assure that the necessary reformation of our system of Social Security can become a reality.
And perhaps then, the federal government will return to Americans the right to shape and finance their own destinies.
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