Social Security is an immoral socialist boondagle that produces winners and losers. The biggest losers are the elderly people now receiving benefits. The "benefit" provided them is that thousands of dollars have been stolen from their paychecks all their lives, and now, as thanks, they're put on a dole. That just plain stinks. If you elderly folk had been able to invest that money, or just put it in the bank, you'd have a much, MUCH higher return. In many cases, social security is even giving you NEGATIVE returns! This is mainly true for low-income people. Go to www.socialsecurity.org to calculate how much you, personally, have been jipped.

The elderly will not remain the biggest losers for long. Social Security's poised to produce even bigger losers, namely: every single person in the population. Wait; where are the winners? That's easy: in any Ponzi scheme, the only winners are the folks there at the very start. In our example, all the winners are already dead, and the rest of us are the losers.

We need to end the insanity. Social Security must and can be phased out. Step one: cease payments to the wealthy. Step two: inform the younger generation they will not be getting any benefits, (which they already know). Step three: use the excess tax money to buy retirement annuities for everyone over 55. In about ten years everything will be wrapped up, and can we wash our hands of the whole disgusting business. One of the most regressive and immoral taxes in world history will be destroyed. The working poor will stop subsidizing the estates of 65-year-old millionaires. The elderly will no longer be denigrated, receiving an allowance like children, and forever dependant upon and fearful of a Congress that breaks its promises again and again and leaves them in the cold.

What's the alternative? Very soon, tax rates will need to be raised to 82% just to keep Social Security from collapsing. The government itself admits this. Needless to say, this is not going to happen, not in the USA, not without a bloody revolt.

At some point, taxation becomes theft, plain and simple. You decide for yourself where that point is, but it's way before 82%. Whether we do it the hard way, or the absolutely horrible way, Social Security will be gone before twenty years pass. Soon, it will not be possible to get ourselves out the the hole we've dug without causing extreme suffering for millions.

The USSR, China, Haiti, India and many others, have all discovered the happy results of benevolent government programs. I may be just one lone, crazy libertarian. However, if we follow the same socialist policies, why, pray tell, would we avoid the same sorry fate?

John Wiltbank