No Apology, by Gov. Mitt Romney (R, MA): on Social Security
Mitt Romney:
So-called "Trust Fund" has defrauded American people
A fiction that's often used to obscure the extent of the crisis is the so-called Social Security Trust Fund, which the American public is assured has a large positive balance. Yet it is not a fund in the conventional sense of the world. From the fund's
inception, money collected from payroll taxes hasn't been "locked away," but rather has been used to pay benefits of current beneficiaries. There simply is no "fund" safely invested somewhere, and therefore entitlement programs will consume an ever
larger share of our economic output. There is no fund, and there is no silver bullet.To put it in a nutshell, the American people have been effectively defrauded out of their Social Security. In 1982, the government raised Social Security taxes with
the intention of creating a surplus that could be set aside in some fashion for the baby boomers when they retired. But for the last thirty years, the surplus has been spent, not on retirement security, but on regular budget items.
Source: No Apology, by Mitt Romney, p.157
Mar 2, 2010
Mitt Romney:
Add individual retirement accounts as option
Individual retirement accounts offer an option that would allow today's wage earners to direct a portion of their Social Security tax to a private account rather than go entirely to pay the benefits of current retirees, as is the case today.
The federal government would make up for its lost Social Security revenue by borrowing the amount through the sale of treasuries, just as it currently does for the rest of its deficits.
Owners of these individual accounts would invest in a combination of stocks and bonds and--presuming these investments paid a higher rate of return than the new treasuries--the return on these investments would boost the payments to seniors.
I also like the fact the individual retirement accounts would encourage more Americans to invest in the private sector that powers our economy.
Source: No Apology, by Mitt Romney, p.160
Mar 2, 2010
Page last updated: Feb 19, 2019