Greg Wilson’s Oct. 9 letter criticizes what he sees as the numerous shortcomings of Ron Paul’s policy ideas. Though I cannot adequately respond to everything here, as a Ron Paul supporter, I would like to address in particular the question of ending Social Security, which Mr. Wilson finds “untenable” and “inhumane.”

Here’s how the Federal Old Age pension (commonly known as “Social Security”) works: Out of every worker’s paycheck, the government takes a portion and gives it directly to retirees. All statistics cited in this column come from the 2007 Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Trustees’ Report, the government’s annual report on Social Security’s financial standing.

When Social Security began in 1940, it was fiscally sound. The fertility rate was 2.23 and shot up to 3.61 in the 1950s, so the workforce took in people faster than they were retiring. The life expectancy was 62 years, so many didn’t even reach the age when they could begin collecting.

Today’s demographics are less favorable to making such a system workable. The fertility rate now hovers around 2.0. Life expectancy is now in the late 70s, so people can expect to collect for at least 10 years before dying.

In 2008, the first baby boomers will become eligible for retirement benefits. The next 10 years will entail a fundamental shift of financial balance in this country, as the generation that paid their dues all their lives will retire and start collecting, and their children will bear the burden.

You probably can guess this program is not sustainable. Social Security currently collects more money than it pays out. The surplus is stored in a trust fund for future use. In 2017, the outgo of the program will overtake the income, and the trust fund’s savings will be tapped.

The trust fund will last until 2041. Every year after that, the program will be hundreds of billions of dollars short.

Every student reading this paper should be deeply concerned, as we will all be in our 50s by then, paying thirty-plus years’ worth of taxes.

This massive program, which is expected to constitute 6.2 percent of our GDP alone by that time, is going to fall apart completely.

Unlike other candidates, Ron Paul has a real solution for this problem. Social Security itself is beyond fixing, but by bringing our troops home from all over the world – where they have no business – we would save enough to pay the promised benefits to our seniors, and get out of the pay-as-you-go system before it reaches a crisis.

Still, Mr. Wilson claims despite the inefficiency and costliness of Social Security, we must keep it, purely out of humanity. This is where the greatest irony is found, for the truth is that in Social Security, poor people lose every step of the way.

The paycheck deduction is a much greater blow to them than to the middle and upper classes. They receive less benefits back because they make smaller contributions all their lives. They are more dependent on their meager Social Security checks than the well-off. And they die sooner, so they ultimately get the least return on their contribution, though they need the most.

Although the well-off live out their lives in retirement homes getting supplementary income from Social Security, the poor elderly live alone in squalor, using their pittance from the government to buy food and pay rent.

And which income group do you think faces the most death before retirement, thereby never getting a single dollar back?

It’s not the rich. This is how the government looks after people.

I’m not the one arguing for inhumanity. Ron Paul isn’t the one arguing for inhumanity. Supporters of this sham of a welfare program are the ones who support inhumanity.

- Matt Brandenburgh is a junior from Columbus and is a student member of The Red & Black’s editorial board.