Have our nation’s elders betrayed their children?

Our Social Security system
is the very definition of a Ponzi, or pyramid scheme

Congressman Ron Paul
Constitutionalist Libertarian

Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

…For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out...

…This year…the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes…

…For the budget year that ends in September, Social Security is projected to collect $677 million in taxes and spend $706 million on benefits and expenses…

Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs…

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs…

…For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.

…Social Security's financial problems have been looming for years as the nation's 78 million baby boomers approached retirement age. The oldest are already there.

…The recession is making things worse, at least in the short term. Tax receipts are down from the loss of more than 8 million jobs, and applications for early retirement benefits have spiked from older workers who were laid off and forced to retire.

STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Associated Press, March 14, 2010