Whither our Social Security system?

Now that the Republicans have swept into office,  we can fix Social Security.

Laugh, boy! That’s a joke!

The GOP and the Democrats both have been kicking the can of our federal retirement program down the road for so long, they could play for the Green Bay Packers. They’ve told us Social Security was secure for the next 50 years; that it was almost broke; that it is broke; that all it needs is to be tweaked here and there; that it’s a “Ponzi scheme” that needs to be scrapped.

They’ve done a lot of talking and politicking. The Democrats — my party, although I’m a conservative one — have told us as they did this year that there’s nothing wrong with Social Security that a little tinkering around the edges won’t fix. They’ve also regularly used that old bugaboo designed to scare the old folks into voting Democratic: Point at the Republicans and shout, with a horrified look, “They’ll cut your Social Security!”      

My dad was like that. A true “Yellow Dog Democrat,” Dad hated Ronald Reagan with a passion. He was convinced that Reagan was going to stroll into some mythical office one day, where they did all the Social Security business, look over a clerk’s shoulder at what she was working on, and say, “Tony Engle, huh? How much are we paying Tony?” She would say, “$378 a month, Mr. President.” And Reagan would stand there, musing for a minute, then say, “Well, Tony doesn’t need that much. Let’s cut him to, oh, $300 even.” And that would be that. And Dad would wind up going hungry the last week of the next month. Dad firmly believed that would happen, if the Republicans ever got control of the whole federal government.

Of course, the Republicans haven’t been any more helpful. Before general audiences, they say they’re “for” Social Security.  But at partisan, all-Republican rallies, they often use the “Ponzi scheme” allegation, or suggest that Social Security should be “phased out,” or something else guaranteed to strike terror in the hearts of many seniors. Somebody always videos them saying it, then conveniently leaks the tape to somewhere where Democrats can find it and publicize it at election campaign time. Not smart, Republicans.

President George W. Bush proposed allowing younger people working and paying into Social Security to put “a portion” of that payment into an IRA or 401(K) to help them in their retirement years (presumably after Social Security had gone broke from too much being deducted from it for, etc., etc.) When asked where the difference would be made up, Bush said, rather disingenuously “from the surplus.”

What surplus, Mr. President? You politicians, both parties, got your greedy paws on that and spent it years and years ago. I know, I know — the Social Security program was set up so that the surplus, when there was one, had to be invested in U.S. securities. In other words, politicians could snatch it and leave an “I.O.U.” in its place. They even allowed us to sign the I.O.U. Mighty nice of them. Of course, what Congress passed many years ago, it can change. That doesn’t seem to have occurred to many politicians of either party.

This suggestion that the presidential commission studying Social Security has made — that the retirement age be raised, gradually, to age 68 by the year 2050, and to 69 by 2075 — drew the predictable howls of outrage from near and far. But really, it isn’t much different from what Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill reached across party lines to agree on in 1983. When first passed in 1935, the Social Security Act allowed people to start drawing their checks at age 65. Of course, most people only lived an average of 67 years in those days, so the strain was little. Then, years later, they changed it so women could start drawing at 62, but men still had to wait until 65. That made little sense to me, as women tend to live longer than men. Finally, about 50 years ago, they changed to the 62-for-all but not a full amount until age 65, for all. Then came the 1983 agreement, which gradually raised the full-pay retirement age to 66 for everyone born between 1943 and 1959 — which included me.

So, you see? Raising that retirement age, that gradually, isn’t going to work any extensive hardships on any appreciable number of people. No program this size can be kept going, and benefiting the largest number of people possible, for many years (75 and counting), without some bruising occurring, here and there. There aren’t any perfect plans. Hey, Social Security never was. But it’s been with us so long now, so many people depend on it for most of their retirement income (sometimes through no fault of their own), that it’s gone down into our bones; it’s in our national DNA. Assurances that it’s “OK,” that there’s no problem, as the Democrats gave us this election year, could lead to a disastrous collapse. Any action to “scrap it” or “phase it out” as the Republicans have proposed, would bring a whole flock of other, equally disastrous problems.

By the way, why is there so much outcry about the proposals — only suggestions, after all — about the gradual changes to try to put the system back on an even keel; and so little about those of us already drawing Social Security having been stiffed for any cost of living increase for two years in a row now? You can look it up — from 1975, when Social Security recipients first got a COLA, through 2009, one was given every year, based on the inflation rate in the third quarter of the previous year. Sometimes it was small — as little as 1.3 percent in some years. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, with inflation raging, it went as high as 14 percent a couple of times.

But we always got one.

Barack Obama entered the Oval Office, and the very first full year he was president, we got none. Zip. That was this year. None on the books for next year, either.

Now, everyone who knows me knows that I don’t like Barack Obama, so I’m not exactly an unbiased observer. But don’t you think that’s a rather strange coincidence?

I know, I’ve gone off-topic a little here at the end. It seemed to be a point that needed to be made, though. After all, it’s all a part of the same problem.

Here’s hoping our politicians will surprise us all this time, and solve it.