Our national Ponzi scheme

Jeff Jacoby: "The myths that hide why Social Security is unsustainable - Beginning with FDR, politicians have promoted fables and fibs about the nation’s largest spending program."

To test your understanding of Social Security, here is a short quiz:

1. How much money is in the Social Security trust fund?

2. How much money have you saved in your Social Security retirement account?

3. How much money are you guaranteed to receive in monthly benefits when you retire?

The answer to all three questions is the same: None.

Social Security and its solvency used to be a pet project of mine but no more.  It's obvious that politicians from both sides of the aisle are just going to ignore the problem until it goes belly-up in a couple of years.

Honestly, it has no basis in modern times.  At the time Social Security was created, manual labor was still a thing and it wasn't reasonable to ask Grandpa to dig a ditch every day to stay out of poverty.  As Jacoby notes, seniors are now the wealthiest segment of society, getting regular payments from younger workers who will be royally screwed when it's time for their retirement.