Forum Post: Social Security vs Libe(R)tarians
Posted 9 years ago on May 11, 2014, 11:01 a.m. EST by shoozTroll
(17632)
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“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
From the party platform, 1980.
To today.
"On the eve of the Reagan presidency in 1980, Milton and Rose Friedman published “Free to Choose,” a proposal for gradually phasing out Social Security. The entitlements of retirees would be honored as would the accumulated credits of contributors who had not yet retired. But no new payroll taxes would be collected. The final elimination of Social Security would allow “individuals to provide for their own retirement as they wish.” Among the advantages would be that “it would add to personal saving and so lead to a higher rate of capital formation [and] stimulate the development and expansion of private pension plans.” While the Friedmans argued for such a plan, they acknowledged that immediate privatization of retirement was unrealistic in the current political climate, but they would accept incremental reforms with the hope that one day total privatization would become politically feasible.
That same year, the conservative Koch brothers-financed Cato Institute published “Social Security: The Inherent Contradiction,” by Peter Ferrara, which argued that instead of being required to participate in Social Security, people should “be allowed to choose from a variety of insurance and investment options offered in the private market. The previous year, two years after its founding in 1977, the institute had published an article by Carolyn Weaver in which she made the case for privatization, and in 1980 it also sponsored a conference on Social Security privatization that drew, among others, two hundred congressional staffers."
So, if you're not as rich as the Kochs, just keep working until you die.
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Well of course and it's all built on lies.
Create distrust in the system through carefully wrought lies and then find ways to cripple it. Kinda like they are doing to the post office.
(also on the list)
Here's an example of the lie that the private accounts pay better returns.
"Comparison of Social Security and private plans
Is it true that private accounts deliver higher rates of return than Social Security? To test the claim, I started by comparing my Social Security statement with my TIAA-CREF statement. Both list the total contributions made by employers and me. The Social Security statement indicates my benefit at sixty-six, the age of my full retirement. My TIAA-CREF statement has the total accumulation. Since I was nearly sixty-six, I knew how much an annuity income it was worth. My first year Social Security benefit was 12.61 percent of my total contributions. The first-year TIAA annuity was 12.06 of total contributions—lower, not higher than the return on my Social Security contributions as the Cato Institute and President Bush so confidently claimed. Remember also that as a professional, I am in a relatively high-income category with a Social Security rate of return that is less than that of lower-income participants. For them, the rate of return for Social Security compared to private accounts would be much higher than mine, making it an even better deal. On top of that, Social Security contains disability insurance for all income groups, while private plans do not."
So many names involved. From Friedman to Bush. CATO and Heritage too.
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