Trust Fund roll call for baby boomers
When Social Security was first instituted, current wage-earners’ payroll taxes were used to fund current retirees’ benefits. This worked as long as the numbers of wage-earners and retirees were approximately the same.
In 1983, former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and former President Ronald Reagan foresaw an crisis in Social Security —baby boomers, as retirees, would greatly outnumber the wage-earners. Their solution was to double payroll taxes on current wage-earners. “Boomers” would finance our parents’ retirement benefits as well as our own. Surplus tax collections would be held in a Social Security Trust Fund. This additional payroll tax was set to “sunset” in about 2035 as I could recall, by which time many boomers would no longer be around to collect benefits.
This worked for a year or so. Then Reagan wanted to balance the budget while keeping his tax cuts. The “excess” cash sitting in the Trust Fund proved irresistible and every president since then —regardless of party —has regarded the Trust Fund as his administration’s personal ATM.
Now that boomers are retiring, it’s time to pay us the benefits we have earned and paid for instead of blaming us for the “crisis” and “tweaking” us around!
— Paula Joneli, Des Moines