Social Security isn't applied as intended

To the Editor:

On July 16 the Valley Morning Star printed an editorial from The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., titled: "Bigger Problem" and subtitled, "Demographic poverty worse than government debt crisis."

While it began with a report of a restaurant owner in Monroeville, Pa., who chose to limit his customers to age 7 and older, the editorial quickly developed into a criticism of seniors and baby boomers for expecting that they should now receive the Social Security and health care for which they have been paying all their lives.

In short, the editorial was a not-too-veiled attempt to instigate class warfare between younger Americans and their parents and grandparents.

The key paragraph contained these important sentences: "It is their turn to relax and enjoy life at the expense of America’s productive generations. Problem is, society cannot afford these retirements no matter what. Boomers did not produce enough workers to generate enough prosperity to tax. In this negligence, they ensured economic contraction. Something must give, and all the options are ugly."

Let’s get some things clear. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt and a Democrat controlled Congress passed Social Security, it was never intended to provide even a supplement to the majority of Americans’ retirement benefits. That is because the average American died by age 63, and FDR’s Social Security benefits didn’t start until age 65.

The majority of Americans were expected to contribute to Social Security their entire lives, but never collect a dime. The program was solvent because most people never received their benefits.

When America experienced the baby boom following World War II, politicians realized that there would be many more people paying into Social Security, so they were willing to expand the program to more people and increase the benefits to buy votes. People could retire at a younger age.

People previously not covered, like farmers, were added to the program. Some farmers made only one payment to Social Security and then received benefits greater than that payment in their first check. Citizens were promised great benefits and they planned accordingly. They were also told that their benefits were in a "lock box," that no one could lose their benefits.

Unfortunately, politicians lie. They were spending the money on government programs and employees, and placing in the "lock box" IOUs that they promised to repay in the future. The future is now, and the politicians don’t have the money.

The article was correct: "Boomers did not produce enough workers to generate enough prosperity to tax." Boomers were told that the United States faced a population crisis. We couldn’t possibly support a population that was growing at the rate at which the Baby Boomers had been born.

Instead, it became politically correct to have smaller families. The Supreme Court supported this philosophy by allowing abortions. Now, after more than 20 years of abortions, we have lost not only those aborted, but also the potential children of the aborted, had they lived. These losses have destroyed our ability to provide for the basic needs that were promised to Americans over the last decades.

But there is something worse: We have lost the American culture. We are no longer a nation of rugged individualists, each striving to be all he or she can be, with minimal interference from the government.

Instead we are a nation divided between the approximately 47 percent of us who rely on the government for our sustenance and support, and the 53 percent of us who are trying to pay the bills for our government and still have enough left over to meet our family’s expenses.

Most of the candidates running for president, as well as those seeking a seat in Congress, see America as a limited piece of pie. We can have either huge tax increases or huge spending cuts. For them there is no other choice.

I’m still waiting for a Ronald Reagan, a candidate who sees America as a "shining city on a hill." I’m looking for a candidate who sees an America that can grow its economy and restore its greatness. I’m looking for a candidate who realizes that a "free" people can out-produce and out-perform a collective society any day of the week.

Which candidate has the courage to stress freedom over bondage, growth over stagnation, responsibility over greed?

Henry Wulff
Harlingen