Surplus Social Security Funds

Your article on the Social Security surplus (Part I, May 22) quoted an Urban Institute study: “What is at stake (with the survival of the Social Security system) is the implicit social contract between generations, in which each generation bequeaths a higher income to its children, in return for which it expects to be supported in its old age.”

This quote reveals the unfocused, collectivist ideas that undergird the continued existence of an institution like Social Security. A generation is not an organism and cannot make a contract, implicitly or otherwise. The quote suggests that the real constituents of society--the individuals--have somehow made a deal about retirement. In truth, of course, no one is free to make his own deal where Social Security taxes are concerned. Indeed, Social Security has everything to fear from allowing people to deal freely: Social Security is such a bad deal, that few would choose it.

The legitimate expectations of those who have paid into the system ought not to be disappointed by squandering the Social Security surplus, particularly if the money merely finances current payments on the host of other welfare state schemes.

As we address the problem of gargantuan budget deficits, however, among the first of the entrenched welfare programs to be cut should be the largest, Social Security.

The long-range objective should be to phase out the system and restore retirement planning to truly free, contractual enterprise.

RICHARD WICKLINE

Los Angeles