Message from Charles Aulds

I was surprised at the number of people who have written to me attacking the US Social Security system as a "Ponzi scheme" that is doomed to fail. I don't see it that way at all. That sounds more like ideologically-driven wishful thinking to me. It's not a fear of its failure that motivates the opponents of Social Security; it is the success of the program that frightens them.

Social Security, which was established in 1935, and for which special taxes were collected beginning in 1937, has been in place for 78 years. Nearly 90 percent of all Americans over the age of 65 receive some of their income from Social Security. Without Social Security, it is estimated that 45.2 percent of elderly Americans would have incomes below the poverty line; with Social Security that number drops to 9.7 percent. Social Security has done an inestimable amount of good for hundreds of millions of Americans. (source)

So, what should America do with the millions of workers (70.6 million as of 2022) who rely on it for decent dignified old age? Good question ... up until now, Social Security has been fully funded. At the end of 2021, the Trust Fund contained (or you might say, was owed) $2.9 trillion. (source). As the population ages, it appears that that deficit will be depleted sooner than anticipated. It is forecast that the program will run an overall surplus that adds to the fund through the end of 2021. At that point, the surplus will turn into a deficit; the program will start to be operated on a deficit basis. Social Security benefits are expected to be payable in full and on time until 2035. (source) At that point, we're in big trouble! Benefits will have to be limited to income from Social Security taxes.

The United States has never borrowed money to pay Social Security benefits ... indeed, the only problem with the program is that the government has been borrowing from the Social Security trust fund for 40 years and now doesn't want to repay that debt and the accumulated interest. A debt owed to whom? To the American workers who paid into the system all their working lives; that's to whom. That's a promise to be honored; the workers did their part.

That money (how much? $2.9 trillion), every penny of it borrowed by the U.S. government, the healthiest chunk of it to sustain a global military empire and for tax cuts for the rich. That money was stolen from America's workers, and put into the pockets of the militarists and corporatists. To pay for their massive empire.

There's your enemy, not Social Security, not "creeping socialism" ... not the welfare state; the warfare state, and the oligarchy that promotes it as a way of getting at the very last of America's wealth that's in private hands (including, but certainly not limited to, the Social Security "trust fund"). They want it all.

What is the correct answer to those who maintain that the US government dismantle or "privatize" Social Security and Medicare? The correct answer is: Never.

Incidentally, America's Social Security system (1935) is the envy of much of the developed world; it's the model of Canada's own Canada Pension Plan which was not established until 1965 (under Lester Pearson). Would Canadians consider giving up CPP? Never. Or, as my Canadian co-worker put it, "if people in this country want that, let them move to the States!"

Charles