Random Walk

Ask a liberal to identify a single government program that actually works and he will unhesitatingly cite Social Security. So most of my Washington friends have been somewhat deflated since the feds announced Social Security is going bankrupt seven years sooner than expected. The trust fund will officially hit empty in 2029—the mid-retirement years for most baby boomers.

Even that projection is absurdly optimistic. The world’s expert on Social Security, Peter Ferrara of the National Center for Policy Analysis, grimly forecasts that by 1999 the combined OASDI and HI (Medicare) trust funds will be spending $8 billion more a year than is collected through the FICA payroll tax and that this annual deficit will soon thereafter mushroom to more than $100 billion. Since the surpluses of the 1980s and 1990s have already been spent by Congress on everything from pornographic-art subsidies to nuclear submarines, the financial insolvency of the nation’s pension system is lurking sooner than Washington pretends.

Featured Tags

Ask a liberal to identify a single government program that actually works and he will unhesitatingly cite Social Security. So most of my Washington friends have been somewhat deflated since the feds announced Social Security is going bankrupt seven years sooner than expected. The trust fund will officially hit empty in 2029—the mid-retirement years for most baby boomers.

Even that projection is absurdly optimistic. The world’s expert on Social Security, Peter Ferrara of the National Center for Policy Analysis, grimly forecasts that by 1999 the combined OASDI and HI (Medicare) trust funds will be spending $8 billion more a year than is collected through the FICA payroll tax and that this annual deficit will soon thereafter mushroom to more than $100 billion. Since the surpluses of the 1980s and 1990s have already been spent by Congress on everything from pornographic-art subsidies to nuclear submarines, the financial insolvency of the nation’s pension system is lurking sooner than Washington pretends.