History of Social Security Essay -- Government Economy Economics Essay

History of Social Security Is it time to privatize Social Security? Many believe the system will not be able to meet all its obligations by the year 2012. They say Social Security will begin paying out more in benefits than it collects in revenue. To continue meeting its obligations, the system will have to begin drawing on the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund. However, for many years the federal government has used the trust to disguise the actual size of the federal budget deficit, borrowing money from the trust fund to pay current operating expenses and replacing the money with government bonds, essentially an IOU. Proponents for privatizing Social Security people should be allowed the freedom to invest their Social Security taxes. On the other hand contrary to the beliefs of many, there is a strong case to be made that Social Security is sound now and will continue to be sound indefinitely. The major threat to the system comes from the proposals to fix it. Privatization presents perhaps the most s erious threat to date; it would place individuals retirement savings at considerable risk, force the creation of huge government bureaucracies, and leech Social Security assets out of the system and into the coffers of brokerage and banks. In my research paper I will focus on both arguments of Social Security. Those who believe Social Security should be privatized and those who believe it would be a big mistake to privatize Social Security. Before I go into those perspectives I will focus on the inception of the Social Security System, to give the reader background information on how the system developed. The creation of a national social security system in the United States started with the Social Security Act on ... ... BIBLIOGRAPHY Baker, Dean."Privatizing Social Security: The Wall Street Fix". http://epn.org/epi/epib112.html Kotlikoff, Laurence."Rescuing Social Securtiy." Challenge Nov/Dec 1996: 22-26 Lieberman, Trudy. "Social Insecurity: The Campaign to take the System Private." The Nation 20 Jan 1997: 11-18 Mashaw, Jerry. "The Great Social Security Scare". http//epn.org/prospect/29/29mash.html Schnepper A.Jeff."Privatizing Social Security."USA Today May 1996: 25-28 Tanner, Micheal. "Privatizing Social Security: The Social Security Debate." Challenge Nov/Dec. 1996: 19-23 Tanner, Micheal. "Privatizing Social Security: A Big Boost for the Poor." http://cato.org/pubs/ssps/ssp4.html Wasow, Bernard. "Privatizing Social Security". http//epn.org/tcf/xxssec01.html Weinberger,Mark."Social Security: Facing the Facts". http://cato.org/pubs/ssps/ssp3.html