Social Insecurity

Last night, in his State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush said: "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security, yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away -- and with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse."

I admit I'm politically naive, but it sure seems as if two quite simple changes could be made to Social Security that would go a long way toward solving the problems of baby boom retirements. I'm certain it would do more than the president's cockemany proposal for personal retirement accounts.

First, remove the $90,000 Social Security salary cap. Second, introduce a means test to determine who is eligible to receive Social Security benefits upon retirement.

We live in an America where currently more than one in four families with children earn less than $30,000 a year, and where 46 million Americans live without health insurance. Meanwhile, if you look at the recently-passed tax cuts which will cost more than $150 billion over the next ten years, you'll find that 97% of the money from those cuts will go to households making more than $200,000 a year. Households with incomes under $100,000 will get 0.1% of these cuts.

Rich people can afford to contribute more to Social Security while they're working and rich people don't need to collect Social Security checks after they retire.