Social Security

WSJ -- "Congress should give workers back their extra Social Security taxes."

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and South Carolina Senator Jim
DeMint are calling for legislation to bring an immediate halt to the ongoing
political raid on the surplus payroll taxes collected by Social Security.

Every day that Congress fails to act, another $200 million is spent
rather than being saved for future retirement.

For the past 20 or so years, the federal government has collected $1.67 trillion more in payroll taxes (and accumulated interest) than it has paid out in retirement benefits to senior citizens.

But not a penny of this money has been saved for any worker's retirement. The surplus dollars get spent by Congress, and the Social Security system is credited with an IOU from the right hand of the government, the Treasury Department.

Where the money will come from to pay these debts is anyone's guess--though if history is any guide it will be higher taxes. Wherever the money comes from, it can't be from the Social Security "trust fund" because those dollars have already been spent.

Instead of spending this retirement money, the reformers would allow individual workers to divert every surplus Social Security dollar--from
now until the extra cash runs out in 2016--into personal retirement
accounts.

As for the politics, this calls the bluff of Democrats who claim to be the sole protectors of the Social Security trust fund but have done nothing to stop depleting it.

Update: Paul Ryan -- the first step in saving Social Security must be to make sure all of Social Security's taxes go to Social Security, rather than to other federal spending.