Rick Perry and his teabag supporters say Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. If that's true, my Mom owes somebody a lot of money.
As we've seen in the Madoff Affair, a Trustee will have to be appointed to clawback the misspent money. As the NYTstates:
Under his approach, those who invested more than they received from Mr. Madoff’s huge Ponzi scheme, the net losers, can pursue claims for reimbursement, while those who took out more than they put in, the net winners, are subject to lawsuits to recoup their gains.
This is fair. If I invest $10 Million and get $1 Million a year in fake profits for 15 years, I'm no victim. In fact I owe $5 Million. So what about my Mom, what does Perry think she owes? Let's look below the squiggly line.
My Dad, a college professor, died when he was forty, with three kids. Middle Class life got a bit more tenuous. Fortunately, Social Security survivor benefits kicked in for my Mom, and she got extra money for the kids until the youngest, me, hit 18 ten years later. She went back to work, but Social Security helped her put all the kids through college, and helped her keep her home. I take attacks on it pretty personally.
But all this Ponzi talk gets me thinking that my Mom and her family is just like the owner of the Mets and those other Madoff friends. There is no way my Father paid more into Social Security than his family took out (after all, he only had 10-15 years or so of work history before he died).
And while she worked for awhile after I started High School, I'm sure she's received more in her own right than she paid in, what with inflation and all.
So, Rick Perry must want her to pay back all that ill-gotten gains. In fact I'm betting there are a whole bunch of seniors who owe a whole lot of money those who haven't tapped into Social Security yet.