Their View

Few people realize that 7.5 percent of their paycheck is taken every month and another 7.5 percent contributed by their employer to Social Security. That’s 15 percent that should be going into your pocket.

There seems to be a lot of buzz lately about how to fix the double-S. There is only one problem with everyone’s logic: That money is mine.

Mine! Mine! Mine!

The money I work for and earn with my own toil belongs to me. What I choose to do with it is my own concern. If I choose to be responsible and save and invest, then I will provide for my own Social Security. If I choose to fritter it all away on useless garbage, then I have earned the right to work until I drop dead.

While President Bush’s plan seems to be about an inch in the right direction, there is another mile to go. At the end of that mile should be total abolition of the socialist program that has been stealing from the American people for the last 70 years.

Republicans and Democrats alike are resisting attempts to privatize Social Security. Here’s why: Every month they get even more money on top of income tax, Medicare, Medicaid and whatever other egregious insult to workers they can dream up.

If you think that 15 percent goes to a piggy bank somewhere and waits for you and your old age, think again. Bureaucrats on both sides of the aisle have been raiding the Social Security fund for many years now. How do you think Bill Clinton achieved his praised balanced budget?

This scam was cooked up by our fabulous, term limit-inducing, socialist leader Franklin Roosevelt. The Constitution spells out quite clearly what the government’s role should be: small, unobtrusive and greatly limited.

But Roosevelt somehow convinced everyone that the government was responsible for defense and a whole string of oh yeah, ands. Oh yeah, and welfare. Oh yeah, and Social Security. Oh yeah, and finding jobs for people. The list goes on and on.

Government is inefficient. Anything it does it inevitably fouls up, so that eventually all these entitlements come crashing to the ground. Socialist — ahem — Social Security will likely go broke before most of the students at this school ever get a dime. By the time we reach our golden years, the Social Security fund will consist of nothing but dust and decades’ worth of politicians’ good intentions.

The whole program is a lame duck. More legislation might be able to shore up this institution for a while longer, but nothing will make it work well. If people took their futures into their own hands, if 15 percent of every paycheck went into stocks, bonds, funds and other investments, then the majority of Americans would be able to retire comfortably.

Instead, we have Social Security which takes from us what is rightfully ours and gives us a pittance of it back. You can keep that kind of security.

The above column was written by Jonas Hogg and appeared in the Kansas State University newspaper, the Kansas State Collegian, Feb. 9. It was made available through UWire.