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SAN DIEGO, January 17, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) — A leader of the US’s largest denomination of African-Americans said that America’s Social Security woes are a result of abortion — because baby boomers aborted so many of those who would otherwise be supporting them in their retirement. 

“Part of the problem that we’re seeing now with Social Security has to do with the fact that 40 to 50 million people who have been killed through abortions have not taken their role as productive citizens,” Church of God in Christ Bishop George McKinney said, as reported by the AP. 

“Social Security is on the road to bankruptcy,” US President George W. Bush said in a radio address Saturday. “And if we do not fix it now, the system will not be able to pay the benefits promised to our children and grandchildren.”

“Because Social Security was created as a pay-as-you-go system, current retirees are supported by the taxes paid by current workers,” the President explained. “Unfortunately, the ratio of workers to retirees is falling steadily. In the 1950s, there were about 16 workers paying in for each person drawing out. Today, it’s about three workers for every beneficiary. And by the time today’s workers in their mid 20s begin to retire, there will be just over two.”

“What this means is that in the year 2018, the system will go into the red—paying out more in benefits each year than it receives in payroll taxes,” President Bush continued. “After that, the shortfalls will grow larger until 2042, when the whole system will be bankrupt.” 

The Population Research Institute borrows a solution to the mounting dilemma from Washington Post columnist Phillip Longman. PRI says that Americans should agitate for changes to the Social Security system “that reduces the fertility disincentives contained in the structure of Social Security itself, and encourages Americans to bear more children.”

“More children now means more taxpaying workers later to help the system avoid bankruptcy,” the PRI briefing continued.

“There are many reasons birthrates are falling, but Social Security itself is likely a major cause because of the raw deal it creates for parents and the enormous subsidies it provides to non-parents,” Phillip Longman explained in his op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday, January 9. 

“So long as Social Security effectively penalizes people for having the very children the system requires, it contributes to a downward spiral of falling birthrates leading to higher and higher tax rates.” 

Read Longman’s op-ed in the Washington Post.

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