Pat Toomey on Social Security

via NRO.

Social Security is going broke, and our fine friends in DC aren't doing anything about it. By 2017, the system will start paying out more than it takes in. What about the Trust Fund, you ask? Worth less than the paper it's written on, nothing but an accounting gimmic, stating my right hand owes my left hand several trillion dollars.

We have four options - three of which I don't like, being raise taxes, lower benefits, or increase government borrowing. The other?

"Let’s take a hypothetical 25-year-old male earning $32,000 a year with average wage growth. Under the current system, he will receive $2,780 per month when he retires, or a measly -0.72 percent return on his contributions (according to the handy calculations of the Heritage Foundation). Now imagine that our hypothetical worker invests the retirement portion of his payroll taxes in a bundle of stocks and bonds, earning a modest 4.9 percent return. When he retires at the ripe age of 67, he will have an account with his name on it worth $1.1 million, or $9,546 per month, ready to be spent on that cabin in the mountains he always wanted.So the debate over Social Security comes down to one simple question: Would you rather have $2,780 a month in your retirement or $9,546 a month?"

So instead of the government taking my money and giving me basically nothing in return, I could be investing it myself and getting three times the benefits. I just wish our lords in DC would let me sign up for this new plan. They sure don't participate in the old one like the rest of us all do today, I note.