Social Insecurity
Ok, I suppose we will never agree on this because we are looking at it from a completely different world view.
See... the fact that Social Insecurity and Medicare/Medicaid have serious funding problems, negate the possibility of it being "the most... successful social programs in America's history".
If the problem is going to be bankrupt in 5 to 10 years, if you have to keep cutting benefits, and raising taxes, if it is constantly coming up in politics about 'what do we do about it?'... that to me is not a "successful social program".
A successful social program is one that works, and isn't in constant threat of falling apart. It's one that isn't cutting benefits and raising taxes every few years. When more than half of generation X thinks it won't be there when they retire... it's not a success.
About the only way to view that as success is from the stand point of Democrats getting votes. Democrats have successfully created a system of dependence by the public, on themselves, and thus gain votes every year by those trapped in their system.
The people trapped in Social Insecurity are left in poverty too. That hardly seems like a success. Maybe you haven't seen them, but I have. I've been to the social services homes. I delivered drugs for a pharmacy for a year. I've been in the government wards where people sit in a one room apartment and collect meals on wheels because Social Insecurity has them trapped, unable to afford anything more.
Worse yet, for the money put into Social Insecurity, the payoff is horrible. Just putting your money into a CD at a bank will yield a higher interest rate than SS.
If you want SS, fine. I want to opt out. I'll keep voting for people who will give me that option. I should not be forced to pay into a system I don't believe in, and I would be better off with that money is a plain money market account. While you get the crappy SS interest rate, I'll have twice as much when I retire if I put it in a mutual fund, and that's assuming you get anything at all with the way government blows money.
