By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… One of the greatest myths being perpetrated on the American people is the concept of Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. Those who call Social Security a Ponzi scheme hope to criminalize the program in the minds of the American people. By thus criminalizing it, they further hope to look like champions of the right as they steal the retirement of the American citizen.

Social Security is not a criminal activity; it is a retirement program; albeit a very poor retirement program. Still it is a retirement program nonetheless.

During the Lyndon Johnson administration, the federal government began to use money collected for the Social Security fund to fund the Great Society and its myriad of welfare programs. His plan was to replace Social Security funds with Treasury Bonds thereby investing it in the federal government. These interest-bearing bonds would pay for the retiree’s benefits and the cash would be spent in the General Fund, i.e. welfare programs.

This investment program was to make Social Security like private retirement programs. Private retirement insurance companies place the money supplied by the client in various interest earning ventures to grow the money. These investments make a profit for the company and make it possible to pay the retiree when the demand comes. The major difference is, where the federal government invested only in Treasury Bonds, most retirement programs diversify their investments.

There are those who object to Social Security being called an entitlement program. Folks that is exactly what it is. Those who have paid into Social Security are entitled to collect from the program.

The problem is the government has used the word entitlement when speaking of welfare programs. No one is entitled to free lunch, free phones, free automobiles, or free health care. Those are welfare. While they may be necessary in some instances, they are not entitlements.

While present day politicians want to paint Social Security with the welfare brush, it is not a welfare program. Social Security is an entitlement because the government said if you give me 15% of what you earn, I will create a retirement program for you.

Not only did the worker contribute to Social Security but also the employer was required to do so. However, don’t be confused. The employer’s contributions were also your contribution. Employers don’t have a separate category for benefits; it is part of your compensation. Therefore, over the last few decades the American worker has been contributing 15% of the first $106,000 of his income, before taxes, to the Social Security Retirement program.

While I am mathematically challenged, I think these figures state a valid argument. If you were to average only $30K/year over your 49 year working life, your contribution would be about $225,000. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the government pays on the money it borrows), after 49 years of working you’d have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you would receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years. If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

To say that present day contributors are paying for present day recipients is disingenuous at best and fraudulent at worst. If that was the case, this would be a Ponzi scheme.

What has happened is that the government has made an investment in Treasury Bonds, which it now does not want to, or financially cannot, cash in. The government has not only stolen the Social Security money; they have stolen the money that should be available through the redemption of the Treasury Bonds.

If you want to solve the Social Security program, drop Congressional retirement programs and place Congressmen and Senators under Social Security and you can bet your bottom dollar the program would be solvent and everlasting.

No one asked me but… Last spring I boldly stated that I would read the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Being old and having little else to do, I read a lot. Once I start a book, I hate to not complete it.

I will admit there have been books that I have not finished. I started a number of Russian novels in which there were too many characters with strange names. I never finished any of them. The Hobbit trilogies drove me nuts and I never completed them, though they were the favorites of a couple of my boys. I started Michener’s Hawaii three times before I completed it.

I will now add the health care bill to that list. I surrender. I have to admit I am not smart enough to understand the gibberish that is designed to make every American well and healthy.

However, have you notice, as is the case with many controversial issues in America, time has a way of making issues, once thought of as earth-shattering, fade into the background. Even now as we are battling unemployment, national debt, the housing crisis, rising gas prices, and impending inflation, we hear little about Obama Care.

Americans have a very short attention span. Nancy Pelosi was wrong. We did not need to pass the bill to find out what is in the bill. We passed it and still don’t know what is in the bill. I defy anyone to read that bill and really understand all its implications.

That last statement may just be sour grapes. It may be arrogant to believe that just because I can’t understand it, no one can.

I remember when I was working on my Doctorate, there was a section of my dissertation that I thought was quite clear. My major professor did not agree, so I verbally explained it to him. He informed me I could not go door to door to explain what I meant, therefore, I must write clearly enough for any reader to understand the message. I would say that is a message our Congressmen and -women might take to heart.

Thought of the week… Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

– P.J. O’Rourke