The Crown Jewel Of American Socialism

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

This week, the Wall Street Journal published some good news for proponents of Social Security, the socialist program that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law in 1935. The Journal reported that the Millennial generation — those whose age range is between 27 and 44 — have experienced a “dramatic turnaround” in finances. The Journal states:

The median household net worth of older millennials, born in the 1980s, rose to $130,000 in 2022 from $60,000 in 2019…. Median wealth more than quadrupled to $41,000 for Americans born in the 1990s, which includes the generation’s youngest members, born in 1996. In early 2024, millennials and older members of Gen Z had, on average and adjusting for inflation, about 25% more wealth than Gen Xers and baby boomers did at a similar age, according to a St. Louis Fed analysis.”

Why is that good news for proponents of Social Security? It assures them that there is more wealth that the IRS can confiscate to support and maybe even expand the program.

The biggest myth in America today is that Social Security is a program in which people are “getting their money back.”

One often hears the refrain, “For 40 years, I’ve paid into the system. I have a right to get my money back.”

President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Bill on August 14, 1935.

But it really is just a myth. There is no truth in it at all. No one “pays into the system.” No one is “getting his money back.”

Social Security is nothing more than another welfare-state program, one based on the socialist principle of using the government to take money by force from one group of people and give it to another group of people. It’s no different from any other welfare program, such as food stamps.

The IRS taxes people to get the money to fund the welfare-warfare state.

It does not deposit any portion of that money into a Social Security lock box or a food-stamp lockbox that has each person’s name on it. The money also does not go into a Social Security retirement fund or a food-stamp emergency fund that earns interest.

Instead, tax revenues are spent on receipt. When people paid payroll taxes 20 years ago, the money went to fund welfare-state programs, including Social Security and Medicare at that time, and also warfare-state programs like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, the tax money that people today feel they “paid into the system” was spent a long time ago. The money that is being used to fund Social Security today is being seized by the IRS from their children and grandchildren and their peers.

Proponents of Social Security claim that their support of this socialist program demonstrates their care and compassion. That’s silly. Where is the care and compassion of a program that depends on the forcible collection and redistribution of money by the IRS, one of the most tyrannical agencies in U.S. history? Genuine care and compassion comes from the willing heart of the individual — e.g., children and grandchildren helping parents and grandparents on a purely voluntary basis — along with church groups, charitable foundations, and the like.

Among the worst aspects of socialism is the mindset of dependency that it inculcates in people. As a masterful politician, FDR knew what he was doing in enacting his socialist program. He knew that once he got people hooked on it, they’d never be able to get off it. Today, so many people are convinced that if Social Security were repealed today, there would be people dying in the streets tomorrow. Pure nonsense. Unlike socialism, freedom works. It not only produces wealth, it also brings out the best in mankind.

Perhaps most important, any society that lives under socialism cannot under any stretch of the imagination be considered to be a genuinely free society. Oh sure, people can convince themselves that they are free under socialism but that’s simply self-delusion. Socialism and freedom are opposites. Our American ancestors clearly understood that, which is why America lived without Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, education grants, subsidies, and other welfare-state programs for more than 125 years. For those who want to experience what it’s like to live in a genuinely free society before they die, a choice must be made: Continue socialism and give up on freedom, or repeal socialism and experience freedom.

Among the greatest gifts that today’s seniors could give to their children and grandchildren and to America before they die — and before America is bankrupted — is the repeal of Social Security and Medicare and the entire welfare-state way of life that FDR foisted upon America.