[jhcarrell]

One of the biggest reasons SS is "broken" is that since it's inception gov't has constantly raided the social security coffers for one pork project or another. Unfortunately, there are still many citizens that believe gov't is looking out for them and has been putting all of their hard earned dollars in a non-existent trust fund that will be waiting on them when they're ready to leave the work force.

This simply isn't the case, what we pay in today not only goes to pay for current retiree's benefits, but whatever moneys is left goes towards other things completely unrelated to SS. This practice is dishonest and certainly not in the best interest of our future generations. Even if gov't limited every dollar paid into SS to go to nothing other than member benefits (which would be a huge improvement), it still amounts to forced wealth redistribution and that is something I have trouble supporting due to it's inherent conflicts with the concept of liberty.

I agree completely that it is the duty, to an extent, to care for and honor our elder generations, but it should not be a function of government. History has repeatedly shown that private giving has always outweighed government funding and ironically there is much less "operational cost" (i.e. cost to run the programs) with private donations.

Also, we each have a responsibility to ourselves and our families to provide to best of our abilities for our own retirements ... it's called personal responsibility.

At the rate we're going SS will collapse at some point in coming years and I believe we'd be better off if we were given the option to opt out.