Fixing Social Security: A Plan

In regards to your most recent email, subject heading ‘Help?’ I feel it vital to inform you, again, Mr. President that I am not an economist. In fact, Washington Mutual is considering revoking my overdraft protection. However, I have given the impeding social security crisis some thought and I do have some ideas for fixing social security that I think we can use to bring both sides back to the table.

We have to attack this problem at its roots. First, we’re going to have to address the issue of the debt accumulated by the social security trust fund. You said before that the trust fund was approximately "a couple bajillion dollars" in debt. My own calculations have turned up roughly that amount as well, so we can assume that that figure is accurate. As you recently pointed out, the trust fund is not an actual trust fund. In fact, it is filled with IOUs. This can definitely work to our advantage. For a small outlay of $29.99, we can invest in a paper shredder to dispose of those IOUs. Boom. A couple bajillion dollars of debt—gone.

Having eliminated the debt and made Social Security solvent again, we will have to deal with the issue of retiring seniors. There are too many of them, and there are plenty more on the way. I haven’t come up with many good ideas for reducing the number of retiring seniors other than encouraging smoking. Maybe we could send a free pack of Marlboros with every social security check (better yet, does Halliburton make a cigarette?) By the way, if any of this gets out, I would suggest pinning it on Rove. It’s what people expect of him.

Now, let’s talk about people my age. The young folks. We can’t expect people my age to continue paying into Social Security. It’s just not fair when there are so many attractive investment opportunities that offer a better rate of return than Social Security. Consider Google. Had I been able to invest in that, I might have been able to retire a googlenaire. As it is, I am going to probably retire in my parents backyard (unless I can afford to rent my bedroom from them). People my age should have personal accounts, guaranteed by the government, automatically deducted from our paychecks. But let me take your idea a step further. I’m just spitballing here, so if you can think of something better, please feel free to discard this. Imagine if instead of personal savings (investment) accounts, we had personal gambling accounts. And what if Social Security included a yearly get together for retirees, in Reno? Let’s put the Social back in Social Security… and hopefully the Security, too.

I just want to reiterate that I am not an economist. Nor am I an environmental scientist. I’m not sure why you keep asking me to fill in at the EPA. At any rate, good luck on Social Security, and I hope that I’ve helped!

Yours,
Earnest Pettie

Originally posted at The Idea Man

The Idea Man
Earnest Pettie's continuously updated blog.