Fixing Social Security

The basic principle behind social security: The average person is incapable of saving money for hard times and retirement and thus becomes a burden on society if/when such times arise, in order to eliminate such burden the money is mandatorily taken from the people through taxes and the government then saves it for them until they retire or fall on hard times. Seems like a good plan, but there are problems. The way it works now is that the people who are working pay the expenses of the people who are retiring. In the past this plan worked well, the ratio of working people to retired people was large enough so that there was no shortage of cash. As time has gone on that ratio has changed and people are now living longer leaving the system with a shortage of cash. My solution to this problem has several aspects, which not only solve this problem but also help us with our national debt. The first action I would say we should take would be to determine how much money every living person has put into social security with interest. Next we privatize accounts and put the amount determined into that account. At this point we encounter the problem of not having enough money again. To fix this problem we make a small increase on the federal income tax to correct the balance for people retiring in that year. The tax increase would decrease every year until we reached a balance point of the amount someone put into social security being the amount that they get upon retirement. (No one likes a tax increase but it is far better than having people who have paid into the system one day get nothing) Another way to lower costs and keep the system working would be to increase the age at which benefits are available every now and again as the average life expectancy increases. As with any other asset the balance of a person’s private account could be willed to someone else upon his or her death. As far as the national debt aspect goes many of the accounts will sit inactive for years accumulating money until a person retires. The government should then take that money and spend it when we go to war or have some other national need that exceeds our budget. One the account is called in upon that persons retirement the balance is restored plus the higher interest given on a government bond if it was used while it was still growing. The money to pay these people back would come from the same tax increase or budget cuts that we would use to pay back a debt to a foreign country, except now our own people get the interest payments instead of a foreign government. I thought this was a pretty good idea so give me some feedback and try to find any problems.