The Social Security System Is Working

To the Editor:

Why mess with Social Security? The program has worked just fine since 1935. Most, if not all, industrialized nations have some form of system that protects people in their declining years. Ours is funded by a payroll tax paid half by our employer and half by us. It is a system designed when the US population was growing rapidly from both immigration and family size and when borrowing was not considered a good government practice.

The system is still working (although we had to raise the tax rate a few times over the years from four percent to the current 12 percent) and it will continue to work until 2008. That is the year when contributions will be less than withdrawals from the system. At that point we will ask the Treasury to begin redeeming the bonds that were purchased with the surplus taxes collected in the past. The Treasury will have to sell new bonds in the commercial market to raise the money. The bonds will last to pay full benefits until 2040. Then additional money will need to be raised to pay full benefits. If we start now, while more payroll taxes are being collected than paid out in benefits, the cost of the solution will be much lower than if we wait until 2008 or beyond.

We a need bipartisan effort to find and implement the right solution. Everyone should contact their congressional officials supporting action now.

Ken Schiess

10 Watch Hill Road, Sandy Hook                              March 14, 2005