Opponents of a national retirement program, commonly referred to simply as “Social Security,” tend to take the view that each person is responsible for their own costs of living and that a secure retirement is something to be enjoyed by those fortunate enough to have earned enough money throughout one’s lifetime to sustain themselves for 20 or more years without gainful employment. Such an attitude completely ignores the concept of gratitude and indebtedness we owe to our predecessors, assuming, incorrectly, that their own successes are completely independent of any other factors and are simply due to their own superior capabilities. According to these folks, each person is fully capable of planning for their retirement, and shouldn’t need to depend on government subsidies to enjoy their golden years. Indeed, their “why should I pay for you” comments show how little they appreciate the hard work that was put into their own upbringing and how little they understand the sacrifices made by preceding generations who created the progress this country has enjoyed.
You can believe what you want to, but I’m here to tell you that any success you may personally have is the result of many different people over many years and extends far beyond the powers of your own mind or capabilities. In order for society to function and progress, the combined efforts of all of its members are required, and as such, we all owe each other a debt of gratitude to some degree. Were it not for the care of our parents, we’d never make it into the world as responsible, productive adults. Were it not for our teachers, we would never learn the skills with which we support ourselves. Were it not for the desires or needs of individuals, we would not have jobs to support ourselves and would instead be a nation of subsistence farmers, scraping by just what we need to survive. We are all responsible to each other in this sense, and as such, we have a responsibility for each other too. One of those responsibilities is to assure that no one is left behind in poverty once their most productive years are behind them. As such, any national retirement program must have at its center this concept of shared responsibility, shared gratitude, and shared respect.
Like other tax-supported programs, the national retirement plan exists as a compact between the people and our government. The agreement has been that when you work, you deposit some of your wages into a social insurance fund. Your employer deposits a like amount as well. When you retire, you will receive a monthly stipend until you die. The government, who is entrusted to safeguarding the funds for their intended purpose, administers this fund. In theory, the number of workers paying into the fund at any one time would exceed the number of retirees withdrawing from the fund, keeping the fund solvent in perpetuity. But the theory has not held, and as a result, our national retirement program will be unable to hold up its end of the deal. The compact between citizens and government has been broken and the time has come to fix things up.
Although today’s retirees are receiving their promised returns, the rules for future retirees have been shifting over the years, raising the retirement age and preparing people for decreased returns. The reasons for this decline are fairly simple: there are more people retiring and drawing from the fund than there are to replace them, even in this age of dual income families, and wages haven’t kept pace to make up the difference. The other reason for the eventual collapse of the current system lies in the betrayal of government and their unwillingness to protect the funds for their intended purpose. Like so many other supposedly devoted taxes, our politicians have consistently raided the retirement funds over the years, replacing the actual money with worthless I.O.U.’s. Today’s workers have been told as much, the administration saying in effect that there will be no money for you when you retire. But go ahead and keep paying in anyway, because that’s how the system works.
Even without these major problems, the system itself fails to offer retirement security to all of our citizens equally, something that any tax based program should strive to do. The most glaring example would be for stay-at-home moms, who because of their absence in the business world have no earnings per se. But their indispensable tasks of rearing our young is worth its weight in gold and should be recognized as the valuable service that it is. Any national retirement program must be offered to all legal citizens equally.
Reform must occur in two separate phases. We must stabilize they existing system to the point that it will meet most, if not all, of its obligations to the citizens who are nearing or are in retirement now. Further, it must figure out a way to make amends to the workers who have and will continue to pay in, knowing full well that they will be getting the short end of the stick. But rather than try to patch a clearly breaking system, we need to let it phase out in favor of a more equal, and arguably more efficient national retirement program.
Retirement programs exist so that we don’t have to work until we die. But for most of our working years, we are either obsessed with saving enough money to retire on or are completely oblivious to what we will actually require once we do retire or how we plan to get it. In today’s business climate, private pensions (which are designed to supplement the national retirement program using your own dollars) are shaky for many, with companies going bankrupt and fleecing employees out of years of built up retirement funds. The relationship between employees and employers has also drastically changed, with the lifetime employee almost being unheard of. The result is any number of smaller 401k plans without the ability to achieve compound growth. It is painfully obvious to many that their best source of income in retirement is likely to be social security funds. This is the reality we live in, and so if we endeavor to continue to offer a national retirement plan, we must think of completely new ways of designing it.
While keeping the existing program on life support is important, first I’m going to propose a national retirement plan for future generations of workers. I think that even though we need to try to fulfill the promises to the people of today, it is also our duty to create a more lasting system than we have now. For any reform of the current system would naturally have to include plans for continuation of some sort, and I believe that our current system is too screwed up to rebuild. Sometimes you really do need to start fresh.
I had originally planned to present my plan for an entirely new retirement program for future generations of workers in this essay, but that will now have to wait until next time. I felt that I needed to defend the concept of a national retirement plan once more before I could go on to explain my ideas. For it is essential to understand that a national retirement program is more than just a reshuffling of tax dollars from one person to another. The essence of our working life is the ability to some day kick our feet up and retire. This is one of the promises of America. This is a part of the American dream. It is something the we, as a society, have affirmed over the last 70 years through our continued support of a system that once was good, but now is sinking.
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 7th, 2005 at 4:46 am and is filed under Government, Life, Politics, Reform, Social Programs, taxes.
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May 7th, 2005 at 4:52 am
Good post. I want to thank you for stoping by and for showing you do care about our wounded veterans.
May 7th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
Ken, you’ve done it again, bro! That is by far, the best, most well-laid out argument in favor FOR a national retirement program I’ve ever seen. I am interested in your proposal when you get around to publishing it. Great post!
May 7th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
This is one of the best Social Security posts I’ve read in a long time. Good work friend! Social Security isn’t and should not be the measure of a person’s success. Whenever someone works throughout their life, at whatever job, they have fulfilled a task for society. As you said, this task makes the success of those to come a little easier and better in some ways. I appreciate how you said that the idea of national retirement penson is, in effect, a stipend to reward said service to the community. Great post. Thanks friend!
May 7th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
Thanks for putting up such a thoughtful and rational explanation of why establishing a viable system for our retired citizens is so necessary. The care of our elderly and the value we place on both the paid and unpaid contributions to our society is part of the face of America. Great post.
May 8th, 2005 at 3:57 am
Another fine post Ken,
I love the idea of changing the name of the SS system to reach across the various programs that fit within the umbrella. That is, we do need to think of the separate pieces as individuals and then as the whole – seeing both the forest and the trees. So, when you call it a “National Pention Plan,” that is much better than calling for reform or establishment of a social security system.
On another thought, as a stay-at-home father, I would add those folks to your “worth-your-weight-in-gold” category. Yes, anyone who is a primary care provider for one or more human beings (disabled, elderly, youth) are deserving of some recognition in a national system that works to secure the financial future of said individuals.
Blog on brother.
May 8th, 2005 at 3:58 am
P.S. I apologize for the typos – e.g. hitting the t instead of the s – in pension. I think I must be a bit in the dyslexic category.
Forgive me dear readers.
May 8th, 2005 at 8:42 am
I hope you’ll stop by to answer the Question Of The Week.
God Bless America, God Save The Republic
May 8th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
Ken, I hope you do not mind but I took the liberty of making this essay the subject of my featured post today. It was just_THAT_good, sir.
May 8th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
(responses)
GTL- Thanks for the compliment. The next post will deal with my concept of a National Pension Plan.
Also, thanks for doing me the honor of directing visitors to your blog to this article. I look forward to reading some of the comments there too. (refers to second GTL comment.)
OKDemocrat- I’m glad to hear you like where I am headed with this. I only hope to keep your enthusiam when in my next post, I offer a suggestion for reform. Thanks for the support.
Jet- Thanks to you as well for the great compliment. It seems as if I’ve hit a chord here. While I don’t think that our current system will be able to meet its obligations, creating a viable system for future generations is a big piece of the puzzle, and patching up the system now, to last in perpetuity, is not using common sense. Once we create a plan for future generations, we can have a more realistic base from which to get the most out of this system for those who’ve bought in. Stop by again.
Windspike- I think that social security more appropriately describes programs that feed the hungry or house the homeless or provide assistance to the poor. A national pension plan would be for everyone, regardless of their temporary situation. All are important, but to clearly solve a problem, we must first clearly define what it is. Throwing all the food into the blender usually doesn’t make for a tasty drink, and the same could be inferred with regards to political legislation.
And while I did single out “moms,” I’m sure you know that by extension I am including all the folks you mention too.
Typo’s? Not a problem with me…we all make them.
May 9th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Ken,
Your justification for an all-inclusive Nation Pension Plan reflects the thoughtfulness and depth always present in your posts but the topic leaves me less than enthused.
To my way of thinking, your statement about the “gratitude and indebtedness we owe to our predecessors” is a bit overstated — what it’s missing is the concept of personal responsibility and what it implies is an even larger bureaucracy to manage an even larger social welfare program.
Since this country began some people have been working their asses off to ensure *their own* futures and the futures of their immediate families; other people have been just doing enough to get by, without regard for the future; still others refuse to do even that much and live off the kindness (or more precisely the tax burden) of others. If anyone, other than my parents and my brother, was ever concerned about how I was to spend my “golden years” it was me.
I’m certainly grateful for this wonderful country we live in and for all the opportunities it affords each of us but I don’t delude myself into thinking it was built on any foundation more noble than personal gain and industry. On those bases it will continue to grow and prosper and create new opportunities.
Sorry for the negativity!
May 9th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
Good post.
Props to GTL for pointing me in this direction.
The common conservative view of Social Security is that it is a crutch to the poor. And another common view is that people should be responsible for their own selves.
George W. Bush is greatly in debt to his families wealth. If anything the social security that his family provided all his life has nothing to do with his own responsiveness to his work or future. For him to tell me that people should be more responsible and own up to their future is a joke.
In essence, Social Security is a plan for the future. And according to the situation in Iraq, Bush knows nothing about planning.
I wonder if Bush would be willing to phase-out his family’s wealth. Or if his un-employed daughters would be willing to not partake in their families social security program.
We all aren’t a fortunate son.
Good post my man.
May 10th, 2005 at 4:08 am
(responses)
Whymrhymer- Thanks for your comments. I appreciate they way we can disagree with civility. It isn’t always so, as I’m sure you know.
I do agree that personal responsibility is one of the most important character traits we can posess but I don’t think that an inability to provide for ones retirement, especially in todays world, reflects an irresponsible nature. Rather, it reflects the imbalance between income levels and productivity levels, which are not always measured equally.
As you say, most people work hard for their own future, but still are finding it difficult to enjoy their retirement years as they should be…without worry of poverty. As individuals, of course, we must look out for ourselves. As a society, we must look out for each other. And while personal gain may be the promary engine of of national growth, I don’t think that relieving the worry of retirement finances will encourage people to be less productive, only freer to find their best opportunity to work, produce, and find happiness.
My next post will describe the system I think we could move towards, but by design, neither you or I will ever receive its benefits. But I think that rather than increase bureaucracy, it is less obtuse than than current system. I hope you’ll give it a read.
MJ- Glad you dropped by. Your observations regarding the distance in economic realities between those who ultimately make the rules and those who are affected by them are poignant indeed. And while this type of inbalance will never cease to exist, with a national pension plan, we could at least assure that all have an minimum landing pad for their golden years.
Hope to hear from you again.
May 18th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
The account is for the individual; death of a child/spouse is of no benefit to those still alive — the money should go back into the fund.
June 15th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Great read. I amazes me how many people believe that their success is a result only of their labors. People fail to realize is that society is an organic, interdependant entity and that every member of society, in some small way, plays a role in the success of individual endeavors.