High Point, NC (WiredPRNews.com) HandsOffMyJack.org, a non-partisan and non-profit entitlement reform advocacy group, is calling on Congress and President Obama to initiate a 20% cut in Social Security benefits. The group’s founder, Pete Leonard says “This reduction is necessary to get the Social Security program on a sustainable path.”
HandsOffMyJack.org advocates a five year phase-in of the 20% reduction, beginning with people who are currently 55 or younger, citing fairness to people closer to retirement age who are closer to receiving the full amount promised by the fund. When asked if a payroll tax increase would be helpful in fixing the broken Social Security system, Leonard replied, “Absolutely not. There is no clarity, direction, or definition for the future of Social Security. It makes no sense to throw even more money down that rat hole until those issues are resolved.” Concerning the disability portion of the Social Security fund, Leonard says that the disability portion of the fund is less than 20% of the total fund, and should be tackled as a fine tuning of the fund as the retirement portion is resolved. Leonard also stated that the looming disability fund shortfall will likely be addressed by allocating more of current and future Social Security payroll tax receipts to disability, further exacerbating the retirement portion of the fund.
HandsOffMyJack.org also believes the Social Security Trustees and the Social Security Trust Fund itself are open to legal challenges due to a breach of the Fund’s and the Trustees’ fiduciary duty. “If the Social Security Trust Fund was an actual trust as it has been advertised to be, the Trustees and the Trust would have been sued long ago for breach of fiduciary duty because the Trust is giving away current contributions received by the Fund to people who were retired years ago. When the current contributors to the Fund retire, the money they contributed to the system will not be there, their contributions already frittered away much like in a Ponzi scheme” Leonard says. “It is a true absurdity that the largest retirement plan in the country is not subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), or something similar, like all private retirement plans in the country. Instead, Social Security, along with our contributions to the plan, has been left to the political whims of our lawmakers. If it is not going to be handled like an actual trust, or like an actual retirement plan, the American people should be told straight up that they are merely paying another tax to fund benefits for someone else.” Leonard proposes that authority over the Trust be transferred from Congress and the current Trustees, to a standing, non partisan commission who could “more effectively manage the assets and obligations of the Trust”.
HandsOffMyJack.org is a small, recently formed, non-profit organization focused on social security reform and entitlement reform. The organization is non-partisan. Its website may be viewed at www.handsoffmyjack.org . Contact Pete Leonard at 336.491.9788 or email at [email protected]
