The Social Insecurity System

The Tea Party Economist reports:

The Social Security System is actuarially (statistically) bankrupt. It’s only a question of when it will go under, and the form the bankruptcy will take. Without massive monetary inflation, there is no way that someone entering the program today will ever be repaid for the heavy taxes he will shell out. In order to postpone the statistically inevitable, Congress in late 1977 enacted the heaviest peacetime tax increase in U. S. history. Anyone doubting the magnitude of this tax burden need only open the PDF at the bottom of this page and examine the table prepared by Huggins E: Co., consulting actuaries. The table is based on the government’s own figures.

Despite the increases, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano has admitted that the present tax rate is only temporary. It will, at best, keep the system solvent only until the year 2000, assuming that birth rates are as high as the Social Security actuaries predict (they are, in fact, much lower) and that price inflation is held to 4% per annum (it is, of course, presently far higher). In short, Califano’s “pessimistic” prediction is woefully optimistic!

The most honest assessment of what is coming as a result of Social Security’s expenditures was made in 1976 by Sen. William Proxmire. He had an exchange with James Cardwell, the head of the Social Security program (he retired in mid-1978).

You'll want to read , the entire article.