Rangel Offers Solution to Social Security Funding Problem

azconservative ^ | 1 Dec 2006 | John Semmens

[John Semmens]

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said the solution to shoring up the solvency of the Social Security System may lie in a new approach to the draft. Rep. Rangel’s proposal to revive the military draft has been given little chance for passage in the upcoming congress.

“The youth of America may just be too selfish to submit to the call to serve,” Rangel conceded. “But I was thinking, if we drafted the oldsters we might kill two birds with one stone.”

Under Rangel’s new plan, those receiving Social Security benefits would be required to serve two years in the military. “War today is highly mechanized and automated,” Rangel pointed out. “A senior citizen is perfectly capable of pushing a button to launch a missile or drop a bomb. The hand-to-hand combat could still be left to the younger volunteers.”

The government is expected to save money in two ways. First, the drafted seniors will displace some of the current military personnel. “Instead of having to pay salaries to soldiers and Social Security benefits to retirees, we’d make one payment to the senior soldiers,” Rangel observed.

The second source of savings is the option of seniors to opt out of the draft by declining to receive Social Security benefits. “The government wouldn’t have to make any payments to those unwilling to serve,” Rangel said. “A lot of the elderly are well-off financially. They own homes free-and-clear. They have private sector pensions. Many own stocks and bonds or businesses. They won’t need Social Security in their old age.”

[SF Republican]

This is a new scrapple...isn't it?

[CharlesWayneCT]

Not to be sarcastic, but it is true that the democrats have made the social security problem worse with their anti-smoking campaign.

[kittymyrib]

LOL...just let the old fogies drive through the streets of Baghdad like they do in every town in America, and the enemy will surrender. Just tell the gray-headed militia that they are going to their doctor's appointment or the post office, and nothing will deter them.

[Feverishb]

OK, the Rangel comments are obviously in jest, but. . . The thing about well-off seniors giving up their Social Security benefits is worth dissecting just to show how large the current Soc Sec problem is. Approximately 1/3 of all promised benefits are unfunded under the current system. So you'd need to eliminate not just some but the entirety of the benefits for 1/3 of the population to fix the program's finances. Obviously, we're not going to do that, so a much higher proportion of the population is going to be affected by the changes needed to fix Social Security. The idea that you can fix it by measures solely affecting the "rich" is seductive to some, but wrong. Meanwhile, a couple of pieces on Soc Sec appeared yesterday that might be of interest. National Review online did a piece on why conservatives should support a Social Security fix, and Don Luskin added an interesting piece also.