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Social Security Reform Thursday: Week Fifty-Two -- Socialist Security.

Thursdays are good days for reform, because they fall between Wednesdays and Fridays. Just because the status quo'ers got their way in 2005 does not mean the problem has gone away. Indeed, it's getting worse with each passing day. Thus, Reform Thursday continues.

That's why WILLisms.com offers a chart or graph, every Thursday, pertinent to Social Security reform.

This week's topic:

Social Security Is Socialist Security.

By now, it ought to be well-established that Social Security is on an unsustainable track. For myriad reasons, reform is absolutely crucial. For example, just as a refresher, note that the worker to beneficiary ratio is not where it was in the beginning of the program:

It's a demographic time bomb we know full well is coming, yet nearly every elected Democrat and a few elected Republicans have chosen to ignore-- to table-- the problem.

But did you know just how socialist Social Security really is?

It's more than just a socialist pyramid scheme in theory. It was, fittingly, thought up by a socialist.

Yes, the "Father of Social Security," Edwin Witte, a bitter rival of free market economist Milton Friedman, was a avowed socialist (.pdf):

Yeah, that's him on the left, there.

Posing for the University of Wisconsin's Socialist Club yearbook photo.

The Father of Socialist Security. And what a brilliant mind-- what wonderful foresight (that's sarcasm)-- he had (.pdf):

As they were drafting the original bill, Witte and his actuaries calculated the program’s revenues and expenses for forty-five years, until 1980. They predicted, with relative accuracy, the lengthening of the American life span and the growth of the elderly segment of the population, from 5.4 percent (or around 7 million) in 1935 to 11.3 percent (or more than 20 million) in 1980.

But they failed to predict the effect of the post-World War II baby boom — or, more importantly, the baby bust that followed. Because of the drop in fertility rates that began in the late 1950s, young workers make up a smaller portion of the population than they once did, and retired people make up a larger and larger portion. In 1945, just before the baby boom began, there were nearly 42 workers paying into Social Security for each retiree taking benefits out. In 2005, this ratio had dropped to 3.3 to 1, and by 2030, it will fall to 2.2 to 1. This deficit of workers is what threatens Social Security’s — and the economy’s — future.

We can grow our way out of a lot of fiscal problems, but we can't grow our way out of the looming crisis in Social Security. And it is a crisis.

It's time for reform.

The clock is ticking:

Previous Reform Thursday graphics can be seen here:

-Week One (Costs Exceed Revenues).
-Week Two (Social Security Can't Pay Promised Benefits).
-Week Three (Americans Getting Older).
-Week Three, bonus (The Templeton Curve).
-Week Four (Fewer Workers, More Retirees).
-Week Five (History of Payroll Tax Base Increases).
-Week Six (Seniors Living Longer).
-Week Six, bonus (Less Workers, More Beneficiaries).
-Week Seven (History of Payroll Tax Increases).
-Week Seven, bonus (Personal Accounts Do Achieve Solvency).
-Week Eight (Forty Year Trend Of Increasing Mandatory Spending).
-Week Nine (Diminishing Benefits Sans Reform).
-Week Ten (Elderly Dependence On Social Security).
-Week Eleven (Entitlement Spending Eating The Budget).
-Week Twelve (Benefit Comparison, Bush's Plan versus No Plan).
-Week Thirteen (Younger Americans and Lifecycle Funds).
-Week Fourteen (The Thrift Savings Plan).
-Week Fifteen (Understanding Progressive Indexing).
-Week Sixteen (The Graying of America).
-Week Seventeen (Debunking Myths).
-Week Eighteen (Debunking Myths).
-Week Nineteen (Reform Needed Sooner Rather Than Later).
-Week Twenty (Global Success With Personal Accounts).
-Week Twenty-One (GROW Accounts: Stopping The Raid).
-Week Twenty-Two (Millions of Lockboxes).
-Week Twenty-Three (Support for Ryan-DeMint).
-Week Twenty-Four (KidSave Accounts).
-Week Twenty-Five (Latinos and Social Security).
-Week Twenty-Six (AmeriSave).
-Week Twenty-Seven (Cost Of Doing Nothing).
-Week Twenty-Eight (Chile).
-Week Twenty-Nine (Entitlement Spending Out Of Control).
-Week Thirty (Reform Better Deal Than Status Quo).
-Week Thirty-One (Social Security As A Labor Cost).
-Week Thirty-Two (Social Security And Dependence On Government).
-Week Thirty-Three (Social Security, Currently A Bad Deal For African-Americans).
-Week Thirty-Four (Longer Life Expectancies Straining Social Security).
-Week Thirty-Five (Howard Dean & Salami).
-Week Thirty-Six (Growing Numbers of Beneficiaries Draining Social Security).
-Week Thirty-Seven (The Crisis Is Now).
-Week Thirty-Eight (Disability Benefits).
-Week Thirty-Nine (Broken Benefit Calculation Formula).
-Week Forty (German Social Security Disaster).
-Week Forty-One (Crumbling Pyramid Scheme).
-Week Forty-Two (Overpromising, Globally).
-Week Forty-Three (Demographic Wave).
-Week Forty-Four (The Jerk Store).
-Week Forty-Five (Defined Benefit Plans).
-Week Forty-Six (Even The Empty Promises Are A Bad Deal).
-Week Forty-Seven (Our Aging Population).
-Week Forty-Eight (The Tax Increases Required To Cover Social Security's Costs).
-Week Forty-Nine (Much Longer To Get Your Money Back From Social Security).
-Week Fifty (A Vote, At Last).
-Week Fifty-One (We Can Do Better).

Tune into WILLisms.com each Thursday for more important graphical data supporting Social Security reform.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 March 2006 09:53 PM

Comments

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at March 31, 2006 11:25 AM