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Show The Birch Log Advertisement A Look At Social Security by John F. McManus Belmont, Massachusetts It is always risky to take a hard look at the forty-year-old, Social . Security system. Anyone who does so can expect to be labelled a heartless monster who cares little about older or disabled Americans. The possibility that there might be a better way than the government's sacred cow to provide for our needs in old age never enters some minds. But if there is not a better way, then, according to former Budget Director Di-rector Roy Ash, we are all doomed to a steadily declining standard of living. . . Gargantuan Growth When Social Security began, its maximum tax per working participant was only $30 a year. Employers were compelled to. contribute a like amount. Scheduled increases brought the tax to $90 a year by 1949, with employers still forced to contribute con-tribute a like amount. Because the system promised a grand return re-turn for so little cost, workers clamored to join. Politicians, always al-ways eager to buy support for themselves with federal dollars, expanded coverage regularly. By July of 1975, 35.3 million Americans Ameri-cans were receiving monthly Social So-cial Security checks. But the system sys-tem was already going in the hole by $12 billion a year, and the higher benefits and greater numbers num-bers of recipients can only mean bigger deficits in the future. In the past, whenever the system sys-tem needed additional funding, Congress either added more young workers, who put dollars in and took nothing out, or it increased the tax. But, realistically realis-tically speaking, there are no more younger workers to add. Instead, Congress repeatedly increases in-creases the Social Security tax on present workers and covers growing deficits by inflation, the 'known nemesis of the old and needy. On February 9, Presr ident Ford asked Congress for another across-the-board increase in-crease to 6.15 percent of all wages up to $15,300. The new maximum cost per individual will be $940.95, every bit of which must be matched by employers. em-ployers. And even this proposed increase will not cover the expected ex-pected deficits, because more and more Americans are becoming becom-ing eligible for Social Security benefits. Deductions from paychecks for Social Security now constitute consti-tute a healthy chunk out of all wages. But the burden to employers em-ployers of matching all such payments has undoubtedly cost many workers a pay raise. Even more, it has forced many businessmen busi-nessmen to postpone or abandon expansion plans. - A Better Way If a, young man earning $200 per week were able to invest what he alone pays for Social Security, he could purchase a retirement plan that would bring him many times the benefits of the government plan, and would provide him with life insurance protection as well. His investment invest-ment would actually supply the free enterprise system with a stimulus that could only result in more goods and lower prices. If employers were not compelled to match employee payments, an era of higher wages, hew businesses, busi-nesses, and more jobs would follow fol-low as night follows day. The Social Security system should be scrapped. But it , should be done in such a way as not to abandon those who are already al-ready dependent oi it. Those on a pension, or about to obtain one, must be guaranteed the' promised benefits. But most who have paid into the system should have their funds returned. re-turned. And no more persons should be taken into the system. The economic spurt that would ensue would be phenomenal. phenome-nal. The consequences of continuing con-tinuing Social Security can only be growing stagnation and impoverishment, im-poverishment, already so evident in socialist England. 1976 The John Birch Society Features FOR INFORMATION CONCERNING THE BIRCH LOG, CALL: BILL REAGAN 586-6226 |