The future of Social Security is at stake. The original purpose of social security was to provide a safety net for our senior citizens suffering the ill effect of the Great Depression. Social Security became a pay as you go where workers subsidize the elderly while being characterized as a "Trust Fund." Social Security was sold as a retirement program while being constructed as a welfare transfer program. Workers would just transfer a portion of their wealth to their retired parents and grandparents with the idea that their children and grand children would return the favor. A social compact was formed. I pay for my parents today and My kids will pay for me tomorrow.

In the beginning, there were 41 workers for either retiree and the payroll tax was set at a low 2% rate of the first $3000 of earnings. This proved to a minor imposition for workers, and many beneficiaries retiring in 1940 saw a 114% return on their original donations.

Over the years, Congress increased benefits and the number of people covered while the number of workers paying into the system declined in relation to the number of retirees. Fertility rates have fallen from a peak 3.7 in 1957 to a present 2.0 per women. The number of future workers required to keep the system solvent is being reduced on a daily basis. There are presently three workers supporting each retiree and actual real return for workers born in 1960 will be less than 2%.

The social security tax is now six times the original tax rates and this could become worse in the future. Depending upon what data that you look at, Social Security could begin to run deficit starting in 2016 and the so-called Trust fund surplus could disappear by 2050.

If a private company had designed a retirement plan in a fashion similar to Social Security, the company would be guilty of establishing a Ponzi Scheme. The CEO's would be rotting away in jail. Yet,the government has created a Ponzi Scheme and no ones know which generation will be left holding an empty bag. We have promoted Social Security as a Trust fund when it is a nothing than an welfare program that transfer wealth from one sector of the population to the other. The government has committed a fraud upon its citizenry. Bush's plan to allow individuals to contribute a portion of their income will actually put a "trust fund" component in the present plan.