How to Get Rid of Social Security – and Protect National Security in the Process

If enacting a $ 2 trillion health care entitlement “reform” bill last week wasn’t enough bad news, now the Congressional Budget Office reports that, in 2010, the government for the first time will pay more in Social Security benefits than it takes in from taxes. This is six years before this giant Ponzi scheme was expected to go belly up. Most economists believe the Social Security shortfall stems from the large number of unemployed who don’t have a paycheck to be taxed. National security is directly tied to the economy. A weak economy means less tax revenues to fund the armed forces, especially with a liberal Congress hell bent on expanding social programs. With less federal revenue, Congress will likely re-examine defense priorities such as troop deployments in Japan, South Korea, Bosnia and NATO. Roughly 10 percent of the U.S. defense budget is spent on the security of these nations. A U.S. withdrawal would ultimately force these countries, including all NATO nations, to spend more for their own defense, thus weakening their economies by way of higher taxes and government spending that would affect security and the global economy. The U.S. obviously needs to cut spending, increase revenues and find a way to replace entitlement programs, like Social Security, so the government can begin to pay off its $12 trillion national debt and establish a firm economic platform in which to promote economic growth. Maybe there is a way. Refund every person under 40 all the money they paid into Social Security, cancel their future benefits, and get them off the government trough sooner rather than later. Most people under 40 with whom I speak do not believe they will ever see any Social Security benefits. It’s apparent that they wouldn’t be disappointed if Social Security went away. Give everyone over 40 the option to receive a refund in exchange for never receiving Social Security payments in the future. Because those people are more financially savvy, and knowing that the government cannot sustain continued deficits, they will probably opt out. Suddenly, there are fewer people to whom the government will have to write checks in the future. Continue paying people already drawing benefits until they die, and then cancel this out-of-control federal program entirely. Mandate that everyone under 40, and those who have opted out of Social Security, open a tax free Individual Retirement Account without a cap on the amount of money they can contribute or earn. This way each individual is responsible for the quality of his or her own retirement, linked directly to the amount of money they save for their future. A tax-free IRA, by the way, like a Roth IRA, means that contributions are taxed up front, and the invested money and earnings later withdrawn in retirement are tax-free. This way the government gets what it needs now to pay off the $12 trillion national debt, and everyone will know exactly what they will have when they retire because they won’t have to worry about paying federal and state taxes. Further, since the people who are forced out or who opted out of Social Security no long have to pay almost seven percent of their incomes into the Ponzi scheme, they can take that same money and put it in their IRAs every payday. Large and small businesses wouldn’t have to pay matching Social Security contributions, and they could shelve their company-provided retirement programs. Instead, employers could match an employee’s contributions as much or as little as they want as a benefit and recruiting tool to keep and attract quality employees. When the employee retires, the business is off the hook to provide a retirement, and the employee is never adversely affected if the company is bought out, downsizes, or goes bankrupt. Eliminating Social Security and replacing it with a realistic plan that creates an incentive for everyone to save and investment for their futures will grow our economy with economic activity, and make our citizens less dependent on government programs that risk the nation’s security.