Annually, Social Security receives over $200 Billion more than it pays out. This extra money is all supposed to go to the Trust Fund, to save up to pay for future retirements. On any employee's pay stub can be found a special tax just for Social Security, whose only stated purpose is to provide for elderly or disabled or widowed people. However, more than half of this $200 Billion+ surplus goes to the governments other expenditures, such as Defense, and also to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us hear about the half trillion dollars that the government needed to borrow last year, especially from Chinese banks, to pay for certain disputed expenditures. In truth, the Congress had to borrow all this extra money from Social Security (in addition to that half trillion), thus denying the Trust Fund of that money for when we need it in the future.

Social Security will cease to work. Granted, it won't break down anytime soon—not for decades yet—but eventually, the burden on the working class will simply be too great. The savings in the Trust Fund will be able to keep Social Security taxes down for a long time, so we shouldn't rush into anything, but it isn't a bottomless cup. Moreover, people will continue to live longer and even longer after that, and be retired and dependant for an ever increasing portion of their lives. Social Security as it is today will protect us from inflation, but it will not protect us from the shrinkage of the working class, both in pure numbers and as a proportion of our society. As Americans are increasingly unable to work, mostly because of automation and largely because of outsourcing, the number of people who are simply not required to work also increases. There is a breaking point.