Free Republic

Democrats calling on the White House to reject Social Security reform may not exactly be news, but this time they’re going beyond the usual, politically motivated allegation that Republicans want to privatize the program and are pushing the White House to preemptively reject even modest proposals such as raising the retirement age or means-testing benefits. In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Dan Maffei, D-N.Y., announced they had a petition signed by 105 members of Congress pledging opposition to any kind of reform.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes a Ponzi scheme as “an investment swindle in which some early investors are paid off with money put up by later ones in order to encourage more and bigger risks.” Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson made waves with his recent description of the Social Security system as a Ponzi scheme, but new Rasmussen Reports polling finds that just 27% of Likely U.S. Voters agree with him. A nationwide telephone survey shows that 36% disagree and don’t believe Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. However, a plurality of 37% aren’t sure. It is likely that many...

President Obama said Social Security is not in crisis and only modest changes are needed to keep it solvent. The president acknowledged at a small town hall gathering in Columbus, Ohio, Wednesday that the pension fund "has to be tweaked because the population is getting older" but said Republicans' plans to drastically overhaul the program are wrong. "Social Security is not in crisis," Obama said. "We're going to have to make some modest adjustments in order to strengthen it." Social Security has become a significant campaign issue during the August recess — Democrats have attacked the GOP,

That may seem like a ridiculous question, but a recent study found more than 20 million Americans have multiple Social Security numbers associated with their name in commercial records. The research was conducted by ID Analytics, a San Diego-based company that provides services to both detect identity fraud and to assess consumer identity risk and creditworthiness. The study found that rather than serving as a unique identifier, more than 40 million SSNs were associated with multiple people. "Our research shows that Social Security numbers, contrary to popular perception, do not uniquely identify an individual," said Stephen Coggeshall, chief technology officer...

It’s not surprising that the Obama administration has delayed the annual report from the Social Security and Medicare trustees to reflect the impact of health care legislation. ObamaCare will show an immediate improvement in the finances of both programs — at least on paper. How real that improvement turns out to be is another question. In the case of Medicare, any improvement will be vastly overstated. That’s because the law prescribes cost cuts and tax increases that will flow to Medicare’s bottom line, even though the measures were approved as a way to pay for an insurance expansion that is...

Union leaders have been among the most vocal opponentsof privatizing Social Security. Their opposition is some-thing of a mystery, because union workers would be amongthose who would gain the most if Social Security were trans-formed to a system of individually owned, privately investedaccounts. Because a privatized Social Security system wouldprovide a higher rate of return, union workers would receivefar greater benefits than they would under the currentSocial Security system. In contrast, traditional SocialSecurity fixes, such as raising payroll taxes, would severe-ly harm union workers.

In a Feb. 22 editorial the Star Tribune wrote favorably of Rep. Martin Sabo's Social Security "fix." The Sabo "fix" essentially promises to pay a higher rate of interest on Social Security's trust fund than is now being paid. However, both Sabo and the Star Tribune fail to acknowledge that the trust fund doesn't consist of real money, but is simply an IOU from one part of the government to another. Raising the interest rate on bonds issued to the trust fund simply raises the amount of general fund revenue that the government will eventually be required to transfer back...

When talking about Social Security reform, we need to make two points extremely clear: No one is going to end Social Security or reduce or take away any benefits you have earned over the years. And discussing other options is healthy for our country. Our Social Security system, in its current form, was designed for another era. It cannot meet the needs of today's demographics and it cannot support the benefits it has promised for tomorrow. A program that 50 years ago relied on 16 workers for each beneficiary now relies on three workers. And in less than 30 years...

Whatever happened to family values? President Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security and promote an ownership society contradicts his campaign rhetoric. He is deliberately concealing the fact that today 4 million children are Social Security beneficiaries and that only 63 percent of all beneficiaries are retired workers. Of the $40 million in Social Security checks sent out in September -- the last month for which statistics are available -- only some $27 million went to retirees.