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Free-Market Social Security - YouTube
Channel: John Stossel
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Social Security is running out of money.
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But don't worry our presidents always say
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they will:
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strengthen and save Social Security.
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Safeguard Social Security.
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I'll save Social Security.
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Except, unfortunately none will really save it.
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Here's the problem.
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Years ago government made us a promise.
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Social Security is a program you can count on
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now and in the future.
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Even if you don't save for your retirement,
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government will save for you.
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We are with you through life's journey.
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Social Security: securing today and tomorrow.
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But the program doesn't secure tomorrow.
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The politicians misled us.
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They didn't save your Social Security payments.
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They spent every penny
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the moment they came in.
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But most people don't know that.
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What happens to that money?
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Well hopefully it's held in trust.
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Actually they spent it.
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So what's there gonna be for me?
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When politicians began old-age programs,
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they assumed there'd be enough young workers
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to tax
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to cover the costs of sending checks to old people,
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people like me.
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But
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people like me are living longer these days
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so there aren't enough young people
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to pay for us.
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As a result, Social Security's going broke.
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This year it went into the red
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for the first time.
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Well there is a plan out there to save it,
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but it requires some tough choices.
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The Heritage Foundation proposes
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cutting payments to rich people
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and raising the retirement age to 70.
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There are some common-sense tweaks
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that we can make.
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Common sense to you, you're young.
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Well you know what happened
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is that when Social Security actually was founded,
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life expectancy was below 65.
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The purpose of the program was to protect those few
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lucky ones that outlived everybody else.
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So today the vast majority live past 65.
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Social Security now has a $32 trillion dollar shortfall.
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You expecting to collect Social Security
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from the government?
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No, I doubt it.
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I suppose it's progress that this was the first time
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talking to people on the street when
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most people understood the problem.
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It's just a question of
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how much money
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we're gonna print
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or borrow.
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I mean we're already at a trillion dollars a year.
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Social Security is kind of like the Titanic,
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a ship heading for an iceberg.
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This is a massive ship that moves very slowly.
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If we start making reforms now,
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we can avoid the iceberg.
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If we wait until we can see
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the iceberg right in front of our noses.
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and then we try to turn the ship,
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we're gonna run right into it.
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Medicare will hit its iceberg in just eight years.
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Then benefits will automatically be cut.
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Social Security will hit it in 15 years.
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What's to be done?
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The Democrats say
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spend even more.
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You don't cut Social Security,
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you expand it.
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Nearly every Democrat in the United States Senate
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has voted in favor of expanding Social Security.
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Human wants and needs are unlimited,
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there's always another need,
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another program that needs more funding.
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And pay for it by taxing rich people.
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That's part of my commitment to raise
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taxes on the wealthy.
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Just tax the rich.
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There isn't enough money even that the
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rich would have to pay for the two hundred trillion
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in unfunded liabilities
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that we already have on the books.
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So were young people worried?
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Do you ever think about Social Security?
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I actually don't. I'm still, I still feel
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like I'm too young to know about it.
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When you're old how are you going to support yourself?
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I have no idea.
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It's a failed system really because it's almost like a
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big Ponzi scheme.
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One partial solution proposed by Heritage and others
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is to let workers
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put some of their Social Security money into
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personal retirement accounts.
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Just imagine being able to own and control
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your own retirement dollars.
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They could invest it in businesses
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that could grow the economy,
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whatever rocks your boat.
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Private accounts would almost certainly pay you more
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than Social Security.
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Even a conservative portfolio
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of stocks and bonds that got you about
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a 5% annual return,
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you would make many times more.
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Private accounts have been tried
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in a few countries.
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The investment they created helped Chile rise
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from one of the poorest countries in Latin America
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to the richest.
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And yet, private accounts are still a hard sell.
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Even in Chile, leftists object to
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capitalists getting a cut of the pie.
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The demonstrators are calling for an
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end to the management of pensions
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by private financial institutions.
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We lack gratitude
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for what the free market provides.
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That is difficult to wrap your head around.
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It's easy to think, oh here is the government
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this is where I go.
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Private accounts are also unpopular in America.
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We will never
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let the Republicans
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cut or privatize Social Security.
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We won't allow cuts to Social Security or Medicare!
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What you guys are pushing
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is the right thing to do,
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but it's not popular.
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It is not popular but I think
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people don't fully understand
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how these programs work.
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What happens to that money?
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It goes into a pool I guess?
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Do you know they actually don't keep it in the trust fund,
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they spend it right away?
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Didn't know that.
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When I get my paycheck,
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a lot of it goes to taxes and I see the
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Social Security part of it
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and it's like thirty dollars of my whole paycheck.
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You would rather keep that 30 bucks
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and put it into your own savings account?
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Yeah I would.
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The country's in a deficit.
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There's a point where you can't pay out
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and go in the negative forever.
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She's right.
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Far better to fix old age programs now
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rather than have them suddenly go bankrupt
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later.
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