We live in a beautiful country. Sure, we have some scars – I drove through Kansas just a few days after devastating tornadoes, and the rivers were still flooded, damage still evident – but for the most part, this country is gorgeous, every area with its own unique beauty. The different greens, reds, browns…

And seeing family and friends I haven’t been face-to-face with in many years was incredibly fulfilling. The fun, the food, the games, the serious discussions…

I am finding some of my preconceived notions challenged…

I’m going to discuss Social Security specifically, since there’s a lot of noise and fear-mongering going on. You know the tune: if something isn’t done, the trust fund will become insolvent in the very near future, and the other side of the aisle is going to drag it down, leaving our most vulnerable out in the cold. You know I take anything that comes out of Washington (and their pet media outlets) with a grain of salt… A large one…

It has been my understanding that in the 1960’s, Congress gave themselves permission to “raid” the Social Security trust fund, since it was just a pile of money sitting there doing nothing (and a Democrat-controlled Congress just can’t let a pile of money sit there when they could spend it). As it turns out, that understanding is a bit incomplete.

So, let me tell you what I’ve learned.

There’s a video now being circulated on social media of Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) defending the “fight to save Social Security” from someone who called the fight “garbage.” She is articulate, expresses herself well, and I understand why she was elected to Congress. What she fails to articulate, though, is that Congress is the reason why the current “fight” is even necessary, which I found to be a bit disingenuous.

Here’s the video, and I encourage you to watch it:

https://www.facebook.com/RepStansbury/videos/2791448354377419

So I got a little angry, and started looking into it. I Googled the subject, started reading…

And this is where my preconceived notions took a hit.

All is not as it seems (which is not really a surprise, is it?).

The Social Security Administration’s website has a couple of “myth buster” pages that are very interesting. And the search results showed a couple of very interesting articles.

In January of 2000, the AARP Bulletin interviewed economist (and Democrat) Robert D. Reischauer – who was there when Congress changed the game plan in 1968 (50-some years ago) – discussing whether or not the Social Security Trust fund has ever been raided:

http://classes.igpa.uiuc.edu/jgiertz/Reischauer-AARP.htm

His answer was, basically, no, the fund has not been “raided.” But as he elaborated, it became clear that our current Social Security crisis is, in fact, the fault of Congress. And our current sociopolitical divisions.

In a nutshell: in 1968, Congress and the sitting President (LBJ) decided that surpluses from the trust fund – the extra money collected that wasn’t paid out in benefits – could be “loaned” to the Treasury to pay down the national debt. These “loans” are repaid – with a little interest – by the Treasury when the Social Security system needs the cash to pay benefits.

So the rational is that the surplus is “invested” in safe, low-yield government securities.

I’m struggling to find something bad about that idea…

But there was no thought of the future, no consideration that the baby boomers creating the surplus would be retiring, more or less en masse, and start drawing against those funds; although he tried hard not to, Mr. Reischauer pretty much confirmed that the current Social Security system could have been designed by Charles Ponzi himself… In Mr. Reischauer’s words, “Social security was largely a “pay-as-you-go” system, then.” And this is due entirely to the shortsightedness of the 1968 Congress, who simply didn’t see the need for the Social Security system to have a stockpile of money saved for the future.

Now that essentially all the baby-boomers are retired and drawing their Social Security benefits (and living longer), and their children and grandchildren are fewer in number and not contributing as many total dollars into the system, more and more of the “invested” funds are being called in to cover benefit payments; in the next 20-30 years, if things aren’t adjusted, Social Security will run out of money.

That’s why the discussion about pushing out full retirement age into the 70’s. Of privatizing Social Security (which is a bad idea, given the current state of affairs; I don’t want a few select hedge fund managers/political contributors getting super rich off of Social Security taxes, and you know that’s what will happen – not to mention what would happen if volatile markets crash, taking Social Security with them).

So – yeah, in the video Rep. Stansbury was being a bit disingenuous and did a bit of fear-mongering herself, at the expense of some idiot Republican who walked right into it with a poor choice of words. But that’s our political system today. Fear-mongering. Ignoring facts. Kicking the can down the road for future generations to deal with.

In 1968, our leaders failed to take a long view and revise the system to insure Social Security would be there for the people required to pay into it; they saw only a pile of money they could use. They failed to take into account the large number of retirees who would be claiming benefits over the next couple of decades, data that was clear and available to them even then. The current situation (contrary to the rhetoric,we’re not quite to the “crisis” stage yet, but we’re getting there) was eminently foreseeable. But they didn’t – or wouldn’t.

We’ve had over 50 years to address it. And we still haven’t, and probably won’t until we hit that “crisis” point, when it will be far more expensive to resolve. There’s a lot more bickering and finger-pointing to be done first, to scare us into accepting actions we would never have accepted if not for the fear-mongering.

All is not lost, but I fear the current atmosphere will prevent cooler heads from prevailing. And if you’re counting on your Social Security to make ends meet, that’s what’s worrisome.