What’s so great about taking away my kids’ college fund?

As James Lileks likes to say, the following is full of “screedy goodness” so if you don’t want to hear me rant about Social Security (again) then skip on down. But I’m going to vent on this: I’m whole-heartedly sick and tired of hearing about how Social Security is either “the greatest social program ever” or the “greatest government program of all time” or some other laudatory balderdash.

First of all, Democrats make it sound like the enactment of Social Security was some great moment in history, such as the building of the Panama Canal or the cure for polio. Even as a piece of legislation, it’s remarkably pedestrian: take money from younger workers and give it to destitute seniors. During a time when the FICA tax was merely 2% and seniors were devastated by the Great Depression, Social Security met a need during a troubled time.

Now Social Security is an anachronism. If Congress tried to pass legislation today asking Americans to give up 12.4% of their paycheck, nobody would support it. Yet the FICA tax has creeped up over 70 years because Americans have been heard the mantra that Social Security is the “greatest program ever.” Now 80% of Americans pay more in the FICA tax than in income tax and there’s talk of – yet again – raising the payroll tax. To which I respond: not one more cent. I’m trying to raise my own family and, as far as I’m concerned, I do not bear any responsibility to further supplement the lifestyle of healthy, well-off seniors.

The U.S. government has made promises it simply cannot afford to keep. It’s time to cut future benefits, perhaps indexing them so that the truly needy still receive a full benefit. But we cannot keep raising payroll taxes and punishing younger workers no matter how “wonderful” Social Security is portrayed to an audience that no longer believes it.