SUPPLEMENT SOCIAL SECURITY WITH JUNK MAIL: An Old Idea of Mine With New Meaning

Trust funds for Social Security and Medicare will last one more year than anticipated, according to the trustees for the funds. That puts SS to 2041, and Medicare to 2019. I’m not sure how they come up with these figures, but if they originate with the same people the Bush administration uses to evaluate the progress of the Iraq war, I don’t believe any of it. What we need is for some non-partisan, analytic mathematician to go into the Social Security administration, look at all the factors like $ input and output, birth and death rates, cost of living increases, etc. and tell us when the system is going to tank. And then the intelligentsia who supposedly represent us in Congress—assuming we can find this profile—should get to work and not stop until they figure a way to fix Social Security and Medicare. In 2004, the latest year I could come up with, the average monthly benefit for retirees was $954.90, according to Infoplease. If you are interested, go to the SS Administration site and calculate your future benefits. Hopefully you will be pleased, but you might be surprised. Let’s assume with annual cost of living increases, today the average benefit is around $1,000. I want to add an average of $607 monthly to that by using your portion of the revenue from the sale of your names and personal data by junk mailers, to provide you a supplement to your Social Security and/or pension. To do this, congress must pass federal legislation that gives consumers control over their names and private information. If you think this is a good idea, let your congressional representatives know. Senate; House of Representatives.