Is social security an example of a socialist policy?

[Ravenwolf_mn]

Yes. Social Security is a government retirement program. If the government allowed you to take the money and invest it however you wanted, that would be private and capitalistic. Instead the govt. takes charge of that money and invests it for us. That is the meaning of socialism. We also have socialized police and fire protection, roads and bridges, public health (like vaccination of children, protection from epidemics, food and drug laws, etc.)

Republicans have always wanted to do away with Social Security, but it's a very popular program, especially with old people who are getting the money from it.

Before he was president, Ronald Reagan almost made a career of fighting against the Social Security program. Between the time he was governor of California and the time he got elected president, he went around the country making the same speech over and over, in which he said Social Security should either be abolished or made voluntary. But by 1980, when he was running for president, it was clear that SS was very popular, so he stopped saying that.

When GW Bush came to office, one of his main agenda items was to 'privatize' 1/6 of Social Security, to allow people to invest it themselves instead of giving it to the govt. Since SS doesn't go into an account, instead the money is simply transferred from people paying in to people getting benefits, some people asked him how he expected to make up this money in current payouts. He was never able to answer that question, and I think this is the main reason the plan went nowhere.

But under the circumstances as they are today, aren't you glad he wasn't able to put 1/6 of our SS funds into the stock market?