Letter to WSJ -Mitch Daniels should be ashamed of himself

Chicago Thursday PM 26 January 2012

Editors, The Wall Street Journal

Gentlepeople:

The Wall Street Journal's 'Notable & Quotable' feature can have no better draw than quoting Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. But the second sentence of the Thursday 26 January edition (“Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue.”)

indicates that Maybe Mrs Daniels (who allegedly nixed Mitch's try for the presidency) should be running for president.

Social Security is a lie and scam, no more than a tax on employers, and should be done away with.. Sure, way back in 1937, wage earners took a 1% hit, repeated every time there is an increase in the rate. But 99% of the time it is employers who are writing the checks and sending them into the treasury. If they don't they go to jail, never the wage earner. Since every employer must do this. there is no competitive reason to do anything but add it to the cost of their product. So all the money that goes to DC allegedly for SocSec is from a silent, painless national sales tax. According to the Statistical Abstract of the US this was 36% of all the taxes received by the federal government in 2010.

We have private sector corporations (Prudential, Massachusetts Mutual, Aetna, New York Life) who sell annuities, designed by actuaries, that customers can contribute to over their working careers and get fine pensions. These companies are successful because they take those contributions, accumulate them, invest them soundly in private companies that make things private citizens want and buy. Yes. They even invest in public projects such as infrastructure.

Compare this to SocSec and Medicare where even the illicitly labeled worker 'contributions' are 'invested' only in the general fund, which is the source of everything congress wants to support. SocSec 'benefits' also come from this fund, but equal only to the minimum necessary to keep voters believing they're getting something for nothing.

Whoever presents these facts is accused of wanting to push old people off a cliff. This is unnecessary since 2.5 % of the people who are already in it are dying every year. In 40 years they will all be gone and that problem will be solved. But we must stop pretending that it is a retirement system The Supreme Court has never been asked to determine it's constitutionality, but in its 1961 Fleming v Nestor decision did say it was not an annuity.

Arnold H Nelson