The other side of Social Security

Here's a succinct comment on what's wrong with SS. Everybody is focusing on how Bush's proposal will hurt the system and retired people, but the truth is that the system is based on a misrepresentation and unsustainable in its present form. It is a welfare program masquerading as a savings plan, benefiting older people, many of whom don't need it, at the expense of the younger. It was a scam from day one.

My proposal:

1. Rename it "Welfare for Poor Elderly" and means test the benefits. To those who complain that they were promised these benefits, go pound sand. It was never a savings plan; it was pure wealth redistribution from the working classes to the retired ones.

2. Take all of the money saved and put it into personal accounts for those who paid the taxes, which is what the system was said to be all along. What Bush is proposing is to make Social Security what it has always falsely claimed to be.

3. Pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting such schemes forever as illegal debts.