Social Security: Wrecking Your Freedom To Plan Your Life Since 1935

March 20, 2013 by Don Watkins

I have no plans to retire. I’m a writer who loves what I do, and so I have every intention of working right up until the day when I simply can’t. My dad, on the other hand, is an avid golfer, and although he enjoys his job—he’s runs two different tech companies—he’s looking forward to a decade on the links.
We want different things from life, and all else being equal, we would take vastly different approaches to preparing for retirement.
I would want to save enough to guard me against any financial risks, and perhaps to enable myself to cut back on my hours, but otherwise I would rather spend on my current priorities: growing my business ventures, buying a home, seeing the world. Dad? He would funnel as much money as he could into his retirement accounts.
And that process–thinking about what you want out of life and pursuing it the way you judge best–is what Social Security interferes with. It confiscates a huge portion of our wealth on the premise of “preparing us for retirement.” What that really means is that the government wrecks our freedom to plan our own lives.
And for what? Not even for some one-size-fits-all retirement plan, which would be bad enough. But for nothing—nothing except the assurance that the government will continue to take away the freedom of our children and grandchildren, and give us the money they would have used to design their lives.
I would say “count me out,” but I don’t have that option.