Do I have a deal for you. Send me $300,000 in weekly installments or 15 percent of your income for 45 years, and I just might provide you with a minimal disability program and a less than subsistence income from the time you reach the age of 66 until you die. Of course, if you die before then, I get to keep all the money - unless you leave one of those pesky spouses around when you croak.

In return for this generous offer, I will have the right to use the money you send me in any way I see fit. This includes spending the money to cover any shortfall I may have in my own expenses. I may also continue to require a kickback on any money you might earn after you retire. And I reserve the right to hike the age requirement or even terminate my offer (and keep your money) at any time I wish - at my sole whim and discretion.

Sound too good to be true? Guess again. I already have millions of clients throughout the nation.

I am your government. And if you try to refuse to join my Social Security program, I will put you in jail and take your money anyway.

Based upon an income of $40,000, today's average household will have almost $300,000 in Social Security taxes confiscated by government over an average working lifetime. This includes after tax payroll deductions and the pre-tax portion of employee earnings taken under the misleading guise of "employer contributions".

If families or individuals were permitted to keep those funds, even the most inept investor would achieve at least a three percent after tax return, and those families would have $500,000 at retirement. The average family would easily realize a return of five percent and wind up with $750,000 - more than enough for retirement and the purchase of life and disability insurance over the course of a lifetime.

This should be your money to use or invest as you see fit, not some government handout which vanishes if you fail to reach retirement age. And when you die, your heirs - and not the government - would inherit the money.

I have no problem lending support to those who are disabled and cannot work or those who, by no fault of their own, fall upon hard times. Private and, if necessary, public support of those individuals would be appropriate. There should; however, be consequences for those able bodied individuals who consciously select not to prepare themselves for retirement. Their poverty should serve as an example of those consequences. Yes, they will have to rely on charity and family. They will not live quite as comfortably as those who were responsible. They will either reap or suffer the consequences of their actions. And rightly so.

Ben Franklin was absolutely correct when he asserted those who sacrifice their liberty for the sake of a little security deserve neither.