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According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expenditures for Social Security will begin exceeding revenues sometime in 2018 or 2019.
The insolvency of Social Security is a can that has been kicked down the road for too long now. There are a lot of partisan issues that Democrats and Republicans can lock horns on, but Social Security is a major commitment made to the senior generations of America that has to be upheld.
Three things are going to have to happen. Various interest groups will howl and moan, but in the end, the realities of the situation will demand a compromise that will include these adjustments:
1) Benefits must be reduced. Accountants can fuss over the details, but I would guess that something like a 10% to 20% reduction in benefits will be necessary.
2) Revenues must be enhanced. Again, the devil is in the details, but a raise in Social Security withholding in the vicinity of another 1% might be in order.
3) Eligibility age must be raised. Full benefits used to be available at age 65. That threshold has been raised to age 66 for some of us, and up to 67 for the youngest of us now. The full eligibility age may have to be raised again to 69 or 70. We are living longer now. That's just a plain hard fact.
From the standpoint of someone preparing to retire, none of these changes are welcome. Unfortunately, they are necessary.
We can behave like adults, look at the situation realistically, and deal with it...or, we can stick our heads in the sand while the whole unsustainable system crashes down around us.
We Americans can be pretty partisan and bellicose when we dig our heels in and decide to fight for our convictions.
But above all, I believe we are a pragmatic and practical bunch. It is in the interest of us all to save the Social Security system and put it on a sustainable financial path.
Just like death and taxes, old age will come to us all. We all share a common self-interest in compromising on a practical solution to fix Social Security.
This is an updated version of a short essay I wrote many years ago. If you're a dad, you'll get it.
My life changed forever on August 29, 1979, when my wife Peggy delivered a baby girl and turned me into a father. As I held that helpless babe, with her cute little pudgy nose and wrinkled face, I was overwhelmed by an awesome sense of responsibility.
I knew I was not cut out for this. Patience? Nurturing? Setting an example? This poor kid had no clue what I had gotten her into. But I sure did love that little girl, so I resolved to do my best as a father, however inadequate that might be.
Eighteen months later, Peggy blessed me again, this time with a son. Now there were two young minds full of mush, depending upon us for wisdom, guidance and encouragement! The stakes were getting higher all the time, and I really wasn't feeling any wiser or more patient or confident.
I failed a lot. Too often, I was impatient with my children. There were too many times that I was so wrapped up in something else that I didn't give my kids the attention they deserved. Sometimes I was so tired at the end of a long day that all they got was a quick kiss and a hug before bed, instead of a proper dose of fatherly TLC. I knew I should be doing better, and I prayed frequently that God would help me improve.
Yet in spite of my paternal shortcomings, we had some great times together. We spent many long summer afternoons at the beach. We camped all over the state of Indiana. We had balloon fights and flew kites and shot off fireworks and sometimes we had long, long talks at bedtime. (I knew they were just stalling because they didn't want to go to sleep, but I didn't care.)
We played baseball and Frisbee and made popcorn and chased the dog and sang silly kids' songs and caught lightning bugs and lit sparklers and blew bubbles and jumped in leaf piles and made snow forts. They used to love to dance for me in the living room while we listened to my old Beatles' albums. Those kids were a lot of fun.
So even though I failed at times, there were many times that things were okay. And somewhere along the way I realized that my children would survive the ordeal of living with their imperfect and sometimes grumpy dad, because they knew that I loved them and they knew I did the best that I could.
As the years rolled by I actually started to think that I was getting the hang of this father biz. And darned if those two little munchkins didn't grow up on me! My kids have been out on their own for years now, and it's been quite a while since we've blown bubbles or sang silly songs together at bedtime. But I've got memories enough to last me a lifetime, and I wouldn't trade them for the world.
Thanks to my kids I now have a grand-daughter and two grand-sons, and I get to re-live the past with my grandchildren. They are young enough to still enjoy blowing bubbles, singing silly songs and jumping in leaf piles. I am absolutely convinced that a grandchild is God's consolation prize for getting old.
And now, thank God, I am a mellower version of young Dave. My son Steven once asked, while I was patiently enduring some crazy thing my grand-kids were doing, "Where was this guy when I was growing up?"
Well, that guy was (and is) still under construction. God had an extra 25 years to wear me down before the grand-kids came along.
Watching my kids grow up was one of the great blessings of my life. They taught me things I could never have learned from anyone else. They filled my heart with a love I had never known before. God used (and still uses) them to touch me in a special way.
Now that I've had my shot at child-rearing, I realize that none of us are truly up to the task. We each carry our own hang-ups and misconceptions into the job, and we all stumble through parenthood doing the best we can. What else can we do?
Many times while I was growing up, I butted heads with my father. He was often insensitive and overly critical. On countless occasions I was sure that he was wrong and I was right. He once made me so angry that I didn't speak to him for over a year.
But looking back now, who was right or wrong doesn't seem to matter as much. I don't agree with everything my father did, but I know that he loved me, and I know that he did the best he could.
So, allow me a moment here to give him some overdue posthumous credit: Dad, thanks for raising me and loving me. Thanks for working two jobs and keeping me fed. Thanks for doing the best you could.
Now I understand how tough that can be.
Rabbi Aryeh Spero wrote a great column in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year about what the Bible says concerning economics, and not surprisingly, free market capitalism seems to be the closest thing on earth to the biblical model of fair commerce. READ MORE
