Kiplinger.com - THE SOCIAL SECURITY DEBATE

Kiplinger.com - THE SOCIAL SECURITY DEBATE

The number of articles about Social Security grows. Most, such as this one at Kiplinger.com, acknowledge that reform is needed. Two arguments made on the Fox News -- Special Report are that the very reason to support private accounts is to reduce the future claims on the Social Security Trust Fund and that the original purpose of Social Security has in fact changed. The opponents get these arguments up-side down. They argue that the private accounts will take away from the trust account. The other argument is that Social Security was designed to transfer wealth from "well to do workers" to the elderly poor. The system currently takes money from the relatively poor young folks to pay to many relatively wealthy seniors. This argument is not oft repeated because it sounds as if the argument is to reduce the benefits paid to seniors. The real idea is to increase the investment returns to the young who are in the position of paying for others retirements. Investors simply need to recognize that the system must be fixed and when it is an anchor will be removed from the US economy--boom markets are ahead.