Young Voters and Social Security
By Tim Penny
Former U. S. Representative (D-MN)
Chair, National Advisory Board, For Our Grandchildren

With Halloween week, this campaign season enters its final phase. In these closing days, politicians will undoubtedly try to trick us with a deluge of attack ads and scare tactics. As in years past, it appears that candidates will attempt to frighten senior citizens by asserting that their opponents would somehow try to destroy Social Security.

My advice to seniors: Don’t let the politicians trick you. The truth is that no candidate - and neither political party - would ever destroy our valued and important Social Security system.

My advice to candidates: Rather than frightening seniors, why not try enlightening all voters about Social Security’s future challenges. Who knows, in doing so, you might reassure seniors, while at the same time offering younger voters a reason to support you. Recent polls across the nation show many congressional races too close to call. That means this election outcome could be determined by younger voters who tend to be politically independent. Candidates should take seriously the skepticism these voters feel toward the Social Security system. One national survey found that voters under age thirty are more likely to believe in UFOs than to believe that Social Security will be there for them when they retire.

There skepticism is well-placed. The huge babyboom generation - at 76 million it is twice the size of today’s retirement population - will place severe financial stress on the Social Security program.

Every reputable government agency, from the Government Accountability Office to the Congressional Budget Office, agree on these basic facts: By 2017, eleven short years from now, the Social Security system will no longer collect enough payroll taxes to pay annual benefits. By roughly 2040 the system’s Trust Fund will be exhausted. At that point, only seventy-five percent of promised benefits can be paid with the revenue available in the system.

But more alarming is this fact: the Trust Fund money has been spent to cover the deficits in the general fund budget instead of being honestly set aside to cover future program costs. That means the Trust Fund is no more than an IOU.

One way of meeting Social Security’s future costs would be to transfer general fund dollars back into the Social Security system. The logic of this approach is that the Social Security Trust Fund has been used to cover general fund obligations (or, better said, general fund deficits) - so it is only fair that the general fund return the money to Social Security when needed.

Here is the rub. Over time, this would require cuts in the general fund equivalent to these programs: Food Stamps, Head Start, WIC child nutrition, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Agency, college student loans, the Food and Drug Administration, and more. Obviously, Congress is not likely to do that. So, where will the money come from?

Another option would be to increase payroll taxes by nearly fifty percent or reduce promised benefits by roughly thirty percent - or some combination of these two approaches. However, either way it means that younger workers would pay more - while getting less. Clearly, we need to do better than that.

Today’s younger workers want and deserve a modern Social Security program that works for them. They want to stop their payroll taxes from being spent on other government programs. Is it any wonder that younger Americans have come to believe that they should be allowed to invest part of their payroll tax in a protected personal savings account? In fact, an exit poll conducted after the 2002 election showed that nearly eighty percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 34 support such an option.

Younger voters will not be impressed with candidates who use scare tactics to both frighten senior voters - and stifle an honest debate about Social Security’s future. Instead, they want candidates who will admit the obvious: Social Security benefits will be there for today’s retirees, but without some changes - and soon - the money won’t be there for coming generations.