Social Security is broken. The program has run deficits for many years and will continue to do so indefinitely. The so-called “trust fund” is nothing more than IOUs from the federal government and that will be exhausted in late 2032, and the long-term unfunded liabilities are in the tens of trillions of dollars. Politicians who insist Social Security can’t be touched are not protecting seniors. They are pandering, and when the “Trust fund” is exhausted, there will be 24 percent benefit cuts across the board unless something is done to fix the problem.

The system can no longer be seen as the “third rail” and must be fixed for good.

For decades, Washington has tinkered at the edges by raising payroll taxes and raising the retirement age. None of this has solved the fundamental flaw of Social Security, namely, that it is a pay-as-you-go scheme. Current workers are paying for current retirees, and nothing is being accumulated to pay the current workers. With fewer workers supporting more retirees, the math simply doesn’t work anymore.

There is a better way, one that has worked in many countries around the world, private retirement accounts. Instead of sending their payroll taxes into a government system that is broken and getting worse, workers would invest those contributions in........

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