Unhappy Anniversary, Social Security
For the historians among you, this week marks the 75th anniversary of the delivery of the first Social Security check. The program became law in 1935, began collecting taxes in 1937, and started delivering benefits in 1940. The recipient of that first Social Security check was Ida Mae Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. Social Security turned out to be a very good deal for Ida Mae. Social security taxes were very low (a maximum of $60 per year) and she only worked for 3 years after the payroll tax began. She ended up paying just $24.75 in taxes. Even better, she lived to be 100, ultimately collecting $22,888 in benefits. That’s a heck of a return!
Unfortunately, the program will not be such a good deal for today’s young workers, who will be lucky to get back what they pay in, let alone a big return. Certainly, they will get back far less than they could earn from investing that money privately.
Moreover, Social Security, and its $24.9 trillion in unfunded liabilities, is, along with Medicare, one of the biggest drivers of our future debt. Young people will be paying that off too. Let’s put it bluntly, unless Congress does something to fix Social Security (and Medicare), young people are screwed.
To celebrate this unhappy anniversary, I published two columns this week. The first for Vice News:
https://news.vice.com/article/social-security-isnt-going-away-but-it-is-going-to-get-worse
and the other for Reason.com
http://reason.com/archives/2015/02/06/medicare-and-social-security-tabs-coming
Rescheduled–My conference on the War on Poverty
Last month my conference on “Can We End Poverty,” at Columbia University was snowed out. It has now been rescheduled for March 26.
We will be looking at the failures of the War on Poverty and nongovernmental alternatives.
Speakers will include, in addition to me, John Allison, President, Cato Institute; John McWhorter, Center for American Studies, Columbia University; Ron Haskins, Co-Director, Center on Children and Families, Budgeting for National Priorities Project; Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO, PolicyLink; Christopher Wimer, Co-Director, Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University; Jo Kwong, Director of Economic Opportunity Programs, Philanthropy Roundtable; Harriet Karr-McDonald, Executive Vice President, Doe Fund; Robert Woodson, Founder and President, Center for Neighborhood Enterprise; David Beito, Professor of American History, University of Alabama; Eloise Anderson, Wisconsin Secretary of Children and Families; and Tess Reynolds, CEO of New Door ventures in San Francisco.
I hope that you can join us. To register, go to:
Mindless Austerity? Where?
One of my pet peeves with the Left (I have a whole different set with the Right) is there constant refrain that we have been experiencing some sort of “austerity” both here and abroad for the last several years. Paul Krugman seems to right a column to that effect every other day. Most recently, President Obama took that line in announcing his latest budget proposal, saying that it was finally time to end “mindless austerity.” Austerity? Mindless or otherwise. Where?
I have further thoughts and discussion in this week’s column for National Review Online:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/397817/obamas-mindless-austerity-michael-tanner
Presenting the Huckster (Sigh)
As if there are not enough reasons to believe that the Republican Party is beyond saving, I present to you Mike Huckabee.
The former Arkansas governor, television talk show host, and wannabe preacher has now returned to the presidential campaign trail. With all the problems facing this country, Huckabee has managed to find a new one. Fresh from his critique of Beyoncé’s dance moves – he wondered if her husband, Jay-Z, was a “pimp” for allowing her to perform in public and criticized President Obama for allowing Malia and Natasha to watch her – Huckabee is now deeply concerned about women cussing in public. Such women are “trashy,” Huckabee avers. Now, I can think of many things that I look for in a presidential candidate, but the guardian of women’s virtue is not among them.
Perhaps Huckabee is just trying to fill the Rick Santorum slot in the GOP field. After all, four years ago Santorum told us that, if elected, he would use the presidential bully pulpit to warn Americans about the evils of contraception. The only problem with that is that Santorum himself is back, running once more to protect America from illicit sex.
Meanwhile, Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon who has also caught the presidential bug, has been reviving the bigoted canard that gay marriage is akin to bestiality or pedophilia. That too has long been a Santorum position.
Now it is true that Huckabee, Santorum, and Carson are not going to win the Republican presidential nomination. But the fact that the party continues to treat them as serious people suggests that too many Republicans have not yet learned their lesson.
Applying Obama’s Cuba Logic to Big Government
During this year’s State of the Union Address, President Obama defended his change in Cuba Policy by saying, “When what you’ve been doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.” In my latest column for National Review Online, I suggest he apply that logic to big government more generally. After all, there’s no shortage of government programs that haven’t been working.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/397335/obama-try-something-new-michael-tanner
Obama Returns to Era of Tax and Spend
President Obama’s State of the Union Address and the leaked budget proposals that surround it are little more than warmed over tax and spend. In this week’s column for National Review Online, I take a deeper look.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/396775/obamas-class-warfare-michael-tanner
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