Love the way he lumps people on social security in with people on welfare. People on social security paid in for forty years Walter. People on welfare have many times not worked a day in their lives. Strangely enough, the word welfare doesn’t even appear in this article.
Social spending?
We all agree that social security is run about as stupidly as it can be, but that is not the fault of those where are on it.
If the government was going to be involved in this at all, the funds should have been taken and invested. Instead they were taken after already being spent most of the time on something else. That’s why we have $20 trillion dollars in federal debt.
Any article that lumps in military spending or social security type expenditures into an article about over-spending, doesn’t include the word “welfare” in it, and thinks it passes for intellectual honesty, is DOA in my home.
As it is, military spending and social security are necessities. Fifth generation welfare spending isn’t.
Walter, I like you. This WAS NOT your best work.
In 2007, despite the "pay as you go" construction of the program the SSI fund had $2.2 Trillion in it.
That's about 2x as much money as Goldman Sachs has under management($1.3 T).
But if managed to invest, as you suggest, the nest egg would be much larger. The contribution income to Social Security is about $1.1 Trillion a year. So, if you had followed this course since Al Gore suggested it (you remember the "lock box"?) you would have another $19 Trillion managed by uncle sugar.
That would be moving us along the path to Socialism big time! If you let the Government be the biggest investment bank in the country then everyday they will be deciding if WalMart stock went up or Amazon stock went down.
That seems like a harmful consequence of doing what you and many others suggest. In fact possibly worse than the current mess, as it might well destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs.