I am daunted by Nicole Asmussen’s oversimplification and misrepresentation of Social Security as nothing more than a “70-year-old chain letter.”

Social Security was not an evil conspiracy devised to raise money for just a few at the expense of many. Rather, it was implemented to provide assistance to those who lost their entire life savings during the Great Depression. The establishment of the time determined that American society had a responsibility to provide for those too old, too young or too disabled to work on their own. Additionally, it provided and continues to provide survivors’ insurance to widows and widowers who have lost loved ones to war and other untimely tragedies.

The Bush administration would seem to suggest that Social Security is in crisis and that it needs drastic reforms immediately. However, a nonpartisan report by the Congressional Budget Office would indicate otherwise. According to their assessments, Social Security will remain solvent for another five decades. In 1983, when Ronald Reagan faced a much more real Social Security crisis, he implemented the aid of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and others to try to improve it — not eliminate it completely.

Social Security is not an evil pyramid scheme, as Asmussen states. Instead, it is a safety net that ensures that the middle-class elderly are able to have basic access to food, shelter and healthcare after 40 to 50 years in the workforce.

It is a way of displaying basic human compassion to low- income parents who have to take care of children who have diseases such as cerebral palsy or Tay-Sachs. It is the moral necessity of any democracy.

Simply put, Social Security is not the enemy of middle America. It is its lifeblood.

Joseph Danielson

Senior

English