The news might have slipped by you earlier this week. Post-Super Bowl euphoria, and all that. Our precious Social Security system is going into the red. It wasn’t supposed to happen until around 2016. That’s far enough down the road that Washington’s current political class didn’t really have to worry all that much. It was a crisis that would have to be solved later.

Later is here.

You’ve been paying Social Security taxes for ... how long now? But that’s been OK with you, hasn’t it, because, after all, the money was all being put into the Social Security Trust Fund, where it was wisely invested by our government in anticipation of your retirement years when you would start getting it all back.

The problem here is that (1) your money was not put into any trust fund, and (2) it hasn’t been invested. Well, I guess I’m being a bit dishonest here. It has been invested, but the only return on that investment has been votes — votes for the politicians who took all the money from your precious trust fund and spent it on pork and more.

Every year Social Security would have some money left over from Social Security taxes after all benefits were paid; and every year the political class took that money and spent it. Well, a funny thing happened in 2009. There was barely enough money in taxes to pay the benefits. Now we have the actuary for the Social Security Administration telling us that there won’t be enough Social Security taxes coming in to pay benefits for at least the next two years. In other words, Social Security is broke ... insolvent.

So ... where are the perp walks? When will criminal charges be filed? When’s the trial? Social Security has been a giant Ponzi scheme from the word go! It’s busted! Surely heads are about to roll, right?

What about Bernie Madoff? That guy’s in jail, isn’t he? Well, just what was Madoff doing to his investors that Social Security hasn’t been doing to you all along? You think that’s a stretch? Well, take a look at this nifty little chart I’ve prepared for you. Let’s compare Bernie Madoff to Social Security:

Where do we go from here? Higher taxes, of course ... and possibly means testing. Social Security is busted. It’s broke.

The Community Organizer has promised no new taxes on the middle class, so look for higher Social Security taxes on the evil rich.

My guess? A pass on Social Security taxes between the present earnings cap and, say, $250,000. At that point the taxes return for the balance of a person’s earnings.

Or the government could just seize all private pension plans and pour them into the Social Security system to fix things up ... for a while.


When this happens, at least Social Security will be shown to be the income redistribution scheme thinking Americans have always known it to be.

Now this is a crowd I would love to see in orange jump suits.


http://www.ajc.com/opinion/neal-boortz-s...id=sldr_hm