Local Candidate for Congress Dr. Dan Eichenbaum

The North Carolina 11^th District Republican Primary is going to be an interesting affair. I plan to ask questions of the candidates and post their answers here. At this point in time, this blog is not endorsing any candidate. I'm looking them over carefully, as we should all do our representatives, no matter where we live.

My first question was to Dr. Dan Eichenbaum regarding his plan to eliminate Social Security. As a person nearing retirement this is a topic I will approach with all local candidates. After several days I received this email from Dr. Eichenbaum, posted in its entirety:

I am concerned that Social Security will be financially unable to meet its future obligations. Like you and I, millions of Americans worked for many years, paying into the Social Security system with the reasonable expectation of receiving the retirement benefits promised by the federal government. Instead of investing this money taken from hard-working Americans, career politicians spent our savings to create and fund entitlement programs whose primary purpose is to buy votes so they can remain in office.

Social Security is a ponzi scheme so massive that it makes Bernie Madoff look like a two-bit con artist. In fact, the Supreme Court ruling that "approved" Social Security is one of Professor Levy's "Dirty Dozen" – the twelve worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation's history. In a constitutional and moral sense, I do not believe money should be taken from one party for the "security" of others. Furthermore, the entire system is on the verge of going bankrupt and must be corrected. It is imperative that we use free market principles, without government intervention, to solve this critical issue.

In my opinion, out of fairness, current Social Security recipients should stay on the program until it sunsets. Workers who have met the 40-quarter work requirement would also remain fully vested. A gradual reduction in benefits would only affect those who were still working toward the 40-quarter goal. Future retirees would be allowed tax free retirement and health savings accounts to take care of their specific health and retirement needs. My best guess is that such a phase-out program would require about 20 years to accomplish, giving all concerned the opportunity to make the changes necessary to plan for retirement. Most importantly, in accordance with the free market principles that I believe in, the entire Social Security program must be administered privately and each account must be owned by the individual retiree.

Dr Dan

To check out the doctor's web site, go here.