Letter to the editor: Social Security’s critics dishonest about its stability

While politicians spar over extending Bush-era tax breaks for the super-wealthy, another argument is under way in Washington and it has the power to devastate middle-income America.

Using the national deficit for justification, conservative lawmakers now claim we need to roll back Social Security benefits and up the retirement age to bring federal spending under control. They argue the system is nearly broke and requires massive infusions of cash to remain solvent. Some are even back to promoting privatization, despite the collapse of Wall Street that wiped out trillions in U.S. savings.

Their argument overlooks basic fact, but it does shed light on what’s at stake in November’s elections.

According to the Social Security Trustees Report issued last week, a document presented every year since 1941, the system’s future isn’t nearly so dire as some would claim.

Social Security is operating with almost $3 trillion in reserve. With no change in benefit rates or retirement age, Social Security is secure through 2037. And its impact is acute in states like North Dakota.

The nonprofit nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated in 2005 that nearly six in 10 state seniors (56 percent) would fall below the poverty line if not for monthly Social Security payments. With retirement benefits, provided at the current rate, the number of destitute North Dakotans age 65 and above drops to 10 percent.

Little known is Social Security’s effects on children. The number of North Dakota poor under age 18 would rise to 13 percent were it not for such things as survivors benefits following the death of a parent. As the center’s report states, “when both the breadth and severity of children’s poverty are considered, Social Security does more to reduce child poverty than any other program.”

An updated report by the center is due out later this month, and it’s expected to show no drop in the number of North Dakotans who rely on Social Security just to meet basic needs and that means 114,000 in a state of just under 647,000.

But it’s a fair bet to assume that won’t change the minds of lawmakers intent on dismantling the nation’s longest-running and most successful anti-poverty program, even though it’s supported by workers’ wages and law prohibits it ever from contributing to our nation’s debt.

The tax cuts at issue provide $700 billion to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, and those come at a price to the rest of us.

The upcoming elections ultimately will decide who wins: the well-heeled financial wizards who brought our nation to economic ruin, or retirees and children of deceased or disabled workers who banked on fairness in how tax dollars would be spent.

Niel Ritchie

Minneapolis

(Ritchie is executive director of the League of Rural Voters, a Minnesota-based nonprofit)

Tags: social security, opinion, letters