QotD: Social Security

[F]rom a pure policy perspective, Social Security makes little sense except as a modest welfare program. There is, after all, no earthly reason why most middle class or wealthy citizens need the government to garnish their wages for decades and then provide a retirement benefit later: People are generally perfectly capable of saving for their own retirements. Those who want to paint the program as indispensable are fond of pointing to the large numbers of retirees who rely almost wholly on Social Security for their incomes. But then, when you take a hefty 12.4 percent bite out of people's paychecks — leaving them with less to save — and tell them they can rely on a government benefit later, it's not exactly shocking that many people don't save and rely on a government benefit later.

Julian Sanchez, "Social Security's Progressive Paradox: Retirement 'insurance' as a Rube Goldberg machine", Reason Online, 2005-05-02