This one could seem a bit radical, but hear me out.
We start by forming a private charity called “Social Security of The People of The United States.” This organization accepts donations and, unlike the government, it can invest in stocks, commodities, and real estate, which are traditionally more profitable than Treasuries.
People register their children with the charity, and verify citizenship, and they teach a voluntary tradition of donating to the social security charity to their children. This is a good and noble thing to teach your children.
For the first 30 years or so, the organization makes no payouts. It just accepts donations and builds a portfolio of investments. After that, it starts to operate just like the government program does. And at that point, we phase out the government program.
This method has many advantages:
1. The biggest advantage is that it is non-partisan. Politicians can compete over how much they have donated or successfully fundraised, but they can’t otherwise interfere with it.
2. People can donate extra to the social security charity, and in so doing, they can gain pride and the feeling of doing good.
3. Foreign investors can donate to the charity, as a show of good faith with the American People.
4. The charity can pursue investments that the government can’t like stocks, real estate, foreign debt, foreign stocks, bitcoin, etc.
5. No one is forced to do anything involuntarily. If the Social Security Charity fails, then it is because the people didn’t really want it.
6. If this charity gets big enough, it can start buying certain organizations like hospitals, clinics, universities, and the like, and it can start to offer additional forms of charity to the people.
7. This charity basically takes all of the good things about existing religious charities and adapts them for general secular use. Much good can be learned from religious traditions, and it would be foolish to reject those lessons.
