It was to INSURE that every working man had financial security when he retired. .It was INSURANCE for retirement. Like all insurance, it was to pay off, ONLY when the person retired and when he had no other retirement income.

             If we want to keep Social Security viable, we must make sure that no one draws from it who has not paid into it AND that it pays out only when the person has retired and has no other income.  This is called a MEANS TEST. It is simple and it is fair.

            Those who want to privatize Social Security and those who feel is it some kind of INVESTMENT program, will destroy Social Security and bankrupt it if they have their way.

            Privatizing Social Security usually refers to plans which enable the individual worker to take all or part of the funds which would otherwise go to the Social Security Fund and invest them himself.  Any plan which removes any class of worker from the plan, decreases Social Security as an effective insurance agency, thus weakening it and cutting the amount of funds available to retirees..

THE SOLUTION

Social Security ex-penditures can be reduced over the long term by applying a MEANS TEST to re-tired workers. Means testing would reduce or eliminate pay-ments to retired work-ers whose retirement income or assets ex-ceed specified levels.  There are many ways this could be done. For example: An income test could take into account all income or only "wealth-related" in-come, such as invest-ment income or in-come from a business. Similarly, an asset test could include all assets or exclude widely held assets such as houses and cars. The means test could be applied one time when benefits beginor at regular intervals after benefits begin. The test could eliminate benefits altogether for those exceeding the thresh-old or phase out benefits gradually as income or assets increase beyond the threshold.