Social Security Has Lost Sight of Original Goal

Today’s young employed have no assurance that Social Security funds will be available for their retirement [“The Real Retirement Crisis,” Jan. 11]. Increasingly larger numbers of retirees are drawing from funds paid for by today’s workers.

Social Security would not be facing bankruptcy if the fund was used for the precise reason it was first implemented: as insurance against poverty. Social Security funds should not be an “entitlement” of wealthy or financially comfortable retirees, regardless of how much they paid into it. It is no different than when we pay for insurance against property loss; if we don’t “lose” it, we’re not entitled to a refund.

In order to make Social Security funds available to tomorrow’s deserving retirees in need, it must be first determined by a “cap” of disposable income and property of today’s retirees whether or not a Social Security monthly check is vital to their survival and well-being.

TRINI MARQUEZ

Sky Forest, Calif.

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Many myths are being created to justify privatizing Social Security.

Who’s pushing privatization with doomsday tales about the “crisis” in Social Security? The brokers, investors, insurers and banks that make up Wall Street. They stand to realize huge profits from even a modest privatization scheme under which workers would direct their retirement contributions into private accounts rather than government coffers.

Are these many of the same Wall Street institutions that presided over an orgy of leveraged buyouts and corporate takeovers in the 1980s that destroyed productive companies, raided workers’ retirement plans and turned thousands of high-wage manufacturing employees into holders of low-pay, no-benefit positions in the service and retail industries? Are they the same interests that sapped America’s economic strength by burdening businesses with billions of dollars in new corporate debt--so a relative handful of investors could accumulate mammoth wealth?

Social Security faces many challenges. But do Americans really want to dismantle a public program that will continue to be viable for decades to come and place their retirement hopes in the hands of greedy big-time shakedown artists who value only the short-term profits they can make?

RICARDO F. ICAZA

President, UFCW Local 770

President, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO