Stillwater NewsPress

Our View

July 13, 2010

OUR VIEW: What about Social Security?

Stillwater NewsPress

STILLWATER, Okla. — During his public meeting in Stillwater last week Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., voiced concerns about funding for Social Security.

Baby boomers set to retire will make significant demands on Social Security coffers, Coburn pointed out, and eventually there might not be anything left.

That’s not a popular statement to make to a public that has been paying in to the Social Security Administration for an adult lifetime, banking on that money coming back to them once they leave the workforce for good.

And we hope the senator wasn’t presenting that revelation as breaking news because the threat of Social Security going broke is older than some of the people in Washington making our decisions for us.

What we want to know — need to know — is what is being done to make sure the people paying in will have something paying back out to them when the time comes.

We’ve heard the hue and cry of dwindling Social Security dollars so often and for so long, we in Oklahoma have become desensitized to the claims. Message received long ago. Now, if it’s broken, fix it.

It’s like hearing so many televised threats of imminent danger during tornado season that most Oklahomans are more likely to run out into the yard to gawk than to run into the cellar for safety.

We can’t do anything about the tornadoes, Mr. Senator. What are you and your colleagues doing about the Social Security funding catastrophe you are forecasting?

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