In my country…
…I watched the Republican Presidential candidate debate on Wednesday night. The most excitement of the 2 hours came when Rick Perry doubled down on his recent comments about the Social Security system in the US. In days prior to the debate Perry referred to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. During the debate, he could have tempered his remarks about the US retirement system that has been in place since 1935, or choose to ratchet up his rhetoric instead. In referring to Social Security Perry said “ It is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you're paying into a program that's going to be there. Anybody that's for the status quo with Social Security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids, and it's not right.”
Perry’s comments have to be called out as the lie they are. Perry is lying about Social Security. He is fabricating things that hold no basis in fact. He is deliberately misleading and confusing you. The reason I, and everybody else who knows the truth, must smash this down and expose it as a lie, is because if he, the GOP, and Fox News is permitted to get this going in their echo chamber, a section of the public will start to believe it’s actually true. Just look at the “death panels” that were said to be part of the Affordable Care Act that was signed in into law in 2010. There are no death panels, but in absence of aggressive pushback against a lie, if it is allowed to be repeated enough, people start to believe it’s true.
Social Security as a Ponzi scheme? Certainly not! Put most simply, here’s why. If you do better with a picture than with a written article, then check out this Venn diagram to see what characteristics Social Security and a Ponzi scheme do, and do not, share.
Click on the image to enlarge.
The GOP is a very serious political party that is all about budget discipline, they tell you. The current fight in the Congress is a war over spending because our country is broke, they lead you to believe. Any you might believe the GOP if your attention span is no longer then your finger nail.
If you’re actually paying attention you know the GOP is not serious about this. The GOP that is controlled by moneyed interests like the Koch brothers and the Chamber of Commerce is out to destroy the social safety net that was built as our nation prospered through the industrial revolution. You see, the GOP does not subscribe to the notion that it takes a village. They align to the every man for himself motto. This is, after all, the way a business is run, and the GOP wants the government run like a business. This motto holds in their minds whether that man is 21 or 81, employed or unemployed, healthy or sick. Their fight against the true middle class can be seen in their move to privatize social security that they have been against since its inception, and took new life under President Bush. It continues today when the GOP talks about the need for entitlement reform and groups Social Security into it. It is seen in their efforts in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and New Jersey to destroy worker’s unions. Their bidding for the corporations and the wealthy elite was thrown into wide open view in their proposed 2012 budget that eliminates Medicare to retired senior citizens.
The biggest clue to what the GOP is all about is in broad daylight today as the budget talks are at the end-game. There are agreements between the political parties about the dollar level of the budget, but no agreement seems likely. This is because the GOP, the very serious political party that is all about budget discipline is actually all about social issues. An agreement on a budget to keep soldiers paid, social security checks going out in the mail, and endless numbers of needed services functioning, is being held up because the GOP is now demanding that the EPA not enforce clean air laws, and women not have access to reproductive health care. The true colors of the very serious people of GOP shinning through!
The budget deficit that seems to be important except for when $750 billion of temporary tax cut were to expire at the end of 2010, is becoming important again. What you can be sure of, because it is fact, is that exactly $0 of the current deficit is the result of Social Security. The exact opposite is true. If not for Congress adding the Social Security Trust Fund into the budget, the actual deficit would be worse. The worst recession since the Great Depression, 2 unfunded wars, 2 unfunded tax cuts, and an unfunded Medicare Drug benefit, blew a giant hole in the budget. The stimulus, which was needed, added to the deficit as well.
Social Security is not part of the problem. Current projections show Social Security to be 100% solvent for the next 30 years without making a single change. Somehow the term "entitlements" has become the catch phrase that encompasses Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Social Security is not an "entitlement", but rather a defined benefit that is earned through payment into the system. Everyone who pays into Social Security receives a Social Security Statement. The statement shows exactly how much has been paid in and how much is earned. As the name of this long-standing and extremely successful program says, it is all about the security of our society.
On the other hand, what we should be concerned about, and demand action on, is the cost of medical care. Our system is broken. When 30% of every dollar is used to pay the overhead of insurance companies (including their profits), we are wasting dollars that could pay for actual care. The explosion in the cost to provide medical care to our retired and poor population is a cause for concern, but the state of Social Security in 30, 40, or 50 years from now is not a concern when looking at the current budget deficit. Anybody who tells you it is, is part of The Big Lie.
