Do You Really Believe That Social Security And Medicare Are Your Retirement Safety Net?

Dr. Gary North

From: The Desk of Gary North

For over half a century, public opinion pollsters have asked Americans who are under age 45 whether they believe they will receive Social Security benefits. Repeatedly, as many as half of those surveyed have said that they do not believe that Social Security will be there in their retirement years.

That is what they say. Yet if we judge what people really believe by what they actually do, the public believes that Social Security will enable them to enjoy a comfortable retirement. If people really believed that the Social Security system will not be able to fund their retirement, they would feel compelled to increase their rate of savings. They would also make plans to stay in the work force for at least a decade beyond the normal retirement age.

The household savings rate would have to be at least 20% per year. In China, the savings rate is probably twice this percentage. Those people, by our standards, live in poverty. How do they save so much? Until the recession hit, the household savings rate in the United States had been negative for several years. Americans had borrowed to maintain their lifestyles. There is a disconnect between what people say they believe and what they do. This schizophrenia lies at the heart of the looming bankruptcy, either of the two programs or the dollar.

The Medicare deficit is vastly worse than the Social Security deficit. Yet almost nobody believes that the Medicare system will not take care of old people, even though old people are living many years longer than our parents did, or at least our grandparents did.

The combined unfunded liabilities of the Federal government for the Medicare program in the Social Security program are now in the range of $70 trillion. . . .

There is no possibility that the Federal government will be able to pay these bills. There is no question that the government will default on these political promises. But, as always, the default is always in the future. It is always seen as coming long after today’s congressmen have retired, or so they think and vote.

Today’s congressmen have established a Congressional retirement program so spectacular that they never publish the actual figures. If the public realized what a sweet deal Congress has, voters would figure out that the system is completely rigged against them.

False Doctrine Is Worse Than Schism

Quoting Iain Murray:

Divisions and separations are most objectionable in religion. They weaken the cause of true Christianity. But before we blame people for them, we must be careful that we lay the blame where it is deserved. False doctrine and heresy are even worse than schism. If people separate themselves from teaching which is positively false and unscriptural, they ought to be praised rather than reproved. In such cases separation is a virtue and not a sin.

The old saying must never be forgotten, “He is the schismatic who causes the schism”… Controversy in religion is a hateful thing… But there is one thing which is even worse than controversy, and that is false doctrine, allowed, and permitted without protest or molestation. . . .

Unfaithful Servants

James Madison

Quoting James Madison:

“It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.”

Compromising With The World

George Grant

Quoting George Grant:

One of the great prophets of humanism at the beginning of this century was the science fiction writer H.G. Well who wrote a book called, The Future of The World, in which he portrayed the scientist as a priest of a new religion. There is one quote that Wells uses: “The philosopher kings of the new age of science will elicit from a people worship, and that worship will lead us to a utopia.” Here is a man of science using inherently religious language to try and bring about some type of societal reconstruction with the religion of humanism.

So many of the blessings that humanists enjoy are the fruit of the Christian faith. We would not have a free market economy and the prosperity we have today were it not for the biblical principles of economics practiced and adhered to in the early centuries and the founding of western civilization. Science, technology, medicine are the direct fruits of Christian principles applied. There were no hospitals in ancient world. This was the ministry of a local church in Caesarea. Non-ambulatory medical care grew out of the concern for the poor, afflicted, despised and rejected. So much of what we appreciate and enjoy in Western civilization, what the humanist takes for granted, is really the fruit of Christianity. Our art, music, literature and architecture are all the fruit of Christian principles. Even when humanists go on modern crusades – battles against in tolerance, battles to save the environment – each one of these grows out of a Christian concern for stewardship and justice. Even the hobbyhorses of the humanists and those who would despise Christianity in our day are derived directly out of Christian principles.

There is a very strong, powerful religious left in America. It is odd that people would bemoan and bewail the influence of prominent evangelicals in the market place of ideas. We never seem to hear complaints about the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others from a more liberal perspective. The fact is that people of faith have things to say in the public arena. To exclude one or another because of an ideological bias is absurd and ultimately undercuts the argument of liberalism and humanism.

All through the Scriptures we see that one of the first impulses of a flagrant sin manifested in a culture is to find a justification for it in the Church or among religious leaders. We see among the minor prophets, they were chided for not coming alongside the violators of the standards of justice and blessing them. Sinners are always looking for chaplains for their sin. So today, the advocates for abortion on demand, homosexual rights, for the transformation of our culture into a secular paradise, are always beckoning for the religious to come alongside and bless their efforts.