Neighborhood Ministries

The biggest change was that Democrats saw the growing fund as a source of funds to develop new programs. The fund was growing rapidly because a lot of workers were paying in and very few were drawing on it, and  they only drew on it a short time. Democrats felt that the surplus funds could be used to fund other programs. Therefore they looted the Social Security fund to develop other Social services. As a result, the money was no longer drawing interest and was in fact not available for future payments. As a result, the sole source of income for the fund was the payments received from those who were currently working. That was not a problem since a large number of baby boomers were working and jobs were plentiful so there was plenty being paid in to cover the expenses of those few who were retired and drawing benefits. However, they were very short-sighted. Like many liberal thinkers, they judged things by appearances and did not consider other changes that were occurring. The baby boomers were going to get older and as they did, they would eventually retire. At the same time, the prosperity had led many women to go to work and as a result, they had fewer babies because having children would  hinder their ability to work. The result has been a large growth in the number retiring, and going from paying into the fund to drawing out of the fund, with very few children to grow up and replace them in the workforce. Previously, most people worked as long as possible and didn’t retire until they were no longer able to work. Most could not accumulate much in savings resulting in poor nutrition, nothing to occupy their time, and poor health care. As a result, most did not live long after retirement.  The prosperity brought better nutrition and more health care enabling workers to reach retirement in much better health. With Social Security to provide a basic income, many Seniors now retire around age 62-65 when they are still healthy and with Medicare to provide decent health care, many live a long time after retirement.  If they had not raided the fund and it had been allowed to gather interest, it might not have been a problem for a long time, however, as it is, the problem is facing us much sooner then it would have otherwise, so the Democrats have created the problem they are now warning us about.