Social Security is running out of money.
But don't worry our presidents always say
they will:
strengthen and save Social Security.
Safeguard Social Security.
I'll save Social Security.
Except, unfortunately none will really save it.
Here's the problem.
Years ago government made us a promise.
Social Security is a program you can count on
now and in the future.
Even if you don't save for your retirement,
government will save for you.
We are with you through life's journey.
Social Security: securing today and tomorrow.
But the program doesn't secure tomorrow.
The politicians misled us.
They didn't save your Social Security payments.
They spent every penny
the moment they came in.
But most people don't know that.
What happens to that money?
Well hopefully it's held in trust.
Actually they spent it.
So what's there gonna be for me?
When politicians began old-age programs,
they assumed there'd be enough young workers
to tax
to cover the costs of sending checks to old people,
people like me.
But
people like me are living longer these days
so there aren't enough young people
to pay for us.
As a result, Social Security's going broke.
This year it went into the red
for the first time.
Well there is a plan out there to save it,
but it requires some tough choices.
The Heritage Foundation proposes
cutting payments to rich people
and raising the retirement age to 70.
There are some common-sense tweaks
that we can make.
Common sense to you, you're young.
Well you know what happened
is that when Social Security actually was founded,
life expectancy was below 65.
The purpose of the program was to protect those few
lucky ones that outlived everybody else.
So today the vast majority live past 65.
Social Security now has a $32 trillion dollar shortfall.
You expecting to collect Social Security
from the government?
No, I doubt it.
I suppose it's progress that this was the first time
talking to people on the street when
most people understood the problem.
It's just a question of
how much money
we're gonna print
or borrow.
I mean we're already at a trillion dollars a year.
Social Security is kind of like the Titanic,
a ship heading for an iceberg.
This is a massive ship that moves very slowly.
If we start making reforms now,
we can avoid the iceberg.
If we wait until we can see
the iceberg right in front of our noses.
and then we try to turn the ship,
we're gonna run right into it.
Medicare will hit its iceberg in just eight years.
Then benefits will automatically be cut.
Social Security will hit it in 15 years.
What's to be done?
The Democrats say
spend even more.
You don't cut Social Security,
you expand it.
Nearly every Democrat in the United States Senate
has voted in favor of expanding Social Security.
Human wants and needs are unlimited,
there's always another need,
another program that needs more funding.
And pay for it by taxing rich people.
That's part of my commitment to raise
taxes on the wealthy.
Just tax the rich.
There isn't enough money even that the
rich would have to pay for the two hundred trillion
in unfunded liabilities
that we already have on the books.
So were young people worried?
Do you ever think about Social Security?
I actually don't. I'm still, I still feel
like I'm too young to know about it.
When you're old how are you going to support yourself?
I have no idea.
It's a failed system really because it's almost like a
big Ponzi scheme.
One partial solution proposed by Heritage and others
is to let workers
put some of their Social Security money into
personal retirement accounts.
Just imagine being able to own and control
your own retirement dollars.
They could invest it in businesses
that could grow the economy,
whatever rocks your boat.
Private accounts would almost certainly pay you more
than Social Security.
Even a conservative portfolio
of stocks and bonds that got you about
a 5% annual return,
you would make many times more.
Private accounts have been tried
in a few countries.
The investment they created helped Chile rise
from one of the poorest countries in Latin America
to the richest.
And yet, private accounts are still a hard sell.
Even in Chile, leftists object to
capitalists getting a cut of the pie.
The demonstrators are calling for an
end to the management of pensions
by private financial institutions.
We lack gratitude
for what the free market provides.
That is difficult to wrap your head around.
It's easy to think, oh here is the government
this is where I go.
Private accounts are also unpopular in America.
We will never
let the Republicans
cut or privatize Social Security.
We won't allow cuts to Social Security or Medicare!
What you guys are pushing
is the right thing to do,
but it's not popular.
It is not popular but I think
people don't fully understand
how these programs work.
What happens to that money?
It goes into a pool I guess?
Do you know they actually don't keep it in the trust fund,
they spend it right away?
Didn't know that.
When I get my paycheck,
a lot of it goes to taxes and I see the
Social Security part of it
and it's like thirty dollars of my whole paycheck.
You would rather keep that 30 bucks
and put it into your own savings account?
Yeah I would.
The country's in a deficit.
There's a point where you can't pay out
and go in the negative forever.
She's right.
Far better to fix old age programs now
rather than have them suddenly go bankrupt
later.