I was looking through some old columns of mine and I found one from about 15 years ago with an intriguing headline: “Little Green Martians and Social Security.” I wrote that column in reaction to a news story that was running in media outlets around the country based on a poll of young people that asked a question that went something like this: “Do you believe you will have a better chance of seeing a Social Security check someday or of seeing Martians land on Earth?” And guess what? Most people answered that they figured they'd be more likely to see little green men from outer space than their promised Social Security benefits.
I wasn’t surprised by those poll results. I’ve been listening to Social Security skeptics for a half-century. I remember way back in 1973 when I was sent out as a relatively new Social Security Administration spokesperson to deliver my first speech on the topic. Hardly before I had a chance to introduce myself, some guy in the audience who appeared to be around 40 years old jumped up and said: “I don’t know why we should listen to anything you have to say. We all know Social Security will go belly up long before we ever have a chance to collect a dime out of the system!”
