"For another thing, it is a much more extreme form of privatization than Kolbe-Stenholm, for example, which the group has been discussing. It proposes diverting virtually all of the payroll tax into private accounts, making the cost of transition enormous--why any generation would want to pay for two retirement systems (one to pay current retirees and one to set up the new accounts) is beyond me."
I advocate a system of fully funded private accounts established with each worker's payroll taxes supplemented as needed with a general progressive tax-funded benefit intended to assure a minimum retirement income. (I actually haven't read Cato's plan in full.)
I believe the transition cost for this new system should not be born entirely by any one generation. Transition funding should come from (1) means testing of current benefits; (2) increased progressive general taxes to pay current benefits; and (3) to as little an extent as possible, bonds that will be paid by future generations.
The reason why this should be done is to correct the evils that Social Security now embodies. Social Security is:
(1) detrimental to our nation's economic growth and prosperity;
(2) an immoral tax;
(3) a destroyer of class mobility;
(4) unfair to current workers; and,
(5) anti-family and anti-parenting.
We should now bear the burden of transition fairly in order to put our country back on track to a future of possibilities rather than one of limitations.
