"We will always protect Social Security, Medicare!" says President Donald Trump.

That would be nice.

But when I look at these programs' balance sheets, I don't see how he's protected anything. Both Social Security and Medicare are on track to run out of money.

Politicians mostly ignore the problem. Worse, progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) say they want to expand Social Security benefits.

That's just irresponsible.

My new video points out what we've known for years: These programs are unsustainable.

The problem is that people like me live longer. We like getting monthly Social Security checks and medical care that appears free.

Since we vote more consistently than others, politicians don't want to make us mad by cutting our handouts.

My fellow geezers say, "Social Security is not a handout! I contributed to the 'trust fund' every year. I'm just getting back what I paid in!"

But that's not true. Today, most of us get back much more than we paid in.

In 1935, politicians created the handout, saying, even if you don't save for retirement, government will save for you.

But that was another political lie. They didn't create individual retirement accounts. They didn't save our Social Security payments. They spend every penny as it comes in.

It's why Social Security is like a Ponzi scheme.

Bernard Madoff went to jail because he used new investors' money to pay old investors. That's exactly what our government does.

Few Americans realize it.

"What happens to the money?" I ask people on the street.

"It's held in trust," said one woman.

It isn't.

When politicians started Social Security, there were enough young workers to tax to cover the cost of sending checks to old people.

But now, since we live longer, there aren't enough young workers to fund our payments.

Social Security's costs exceed its income by billions of dollars.

"There is a plan out there to save it, but it requires some tough choices," says the Cato Institute's Romina Boccia. "Commonsense tweaks we can make."

Those include raising the retirement age, capping checks to the affluent, and letting young people opt out of Social Security. Reforms like that require tradeoffs. But ignoring the problem doesn't make it disappear.

We need to act, says Boccia, because Social Security is like the Titanic—gradually heading for disaster.

"Make reforms now," she says, "we can avoid the iceberg. [But] if we wait until the iceberg is in front of our noses and try to turn the ship, we're going to run right into it."

Medicare will hit its iceberg in 2033; then benefits will automatically be reduced. Social Security will hit it the year before.

At that point, incoming taxes will cover only about 78 percent of promised retirement benefits.

Yet irresponsible Democrats say: Spend even more.

"Human wants and needs are unlimited," replies Boccia. "There's always another program that needs more funding."

Sanders says, pay for it by taxing the rich more.

"There isn't enough money even that the rich would have, to pay for the…unfunded liabilities," Boccia points out.

If only politicians had listened years ago, when Cato and the Heritage Foundation proposed letting workers put some of their Social Security money into personal retirement accounts. Instead of relying on future taxpayers, workers could accumulate real assets that grow over time.

Personal accounts give workers something Social Security doesn't: assets we own.

"Even a conservative portfolio of stocks and bonds that got you a 5 percent annual return would have made you many times more [than Social Security]," says Boccia.

Private accounts helped Chile rise from one of the poorest countries in Latin America to one of the richest. Yet leftists still object to capitalists getting a cut of the pie.

"We lack gratitude for what the free market provides," says Boccia.

We should adjust these programs now.

The longer politicians wait, the worse the choices become.

But today's politicians will probably be gone by then.

Our children get the bill.

COPYRIGHT 2026 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

The post Social Security Is Like a Ponzi Scheme. How Do We Fix It? appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Years ago, I bought a contraption designed to separate and concentrate the most volatile components of a liquid mixture. I would tell you what I did with it, but I don't want to implicate myself in a federal felony.

Since 1868, it has been illegal for Americans to locate a "distilled spirits plant" in "any dwelling place," an offense currently punishable by a maximum $10,000 fine and up to five years in prison. The federal ban on home distilling is at the center of a case that the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear, which raises a specific constitutional issue but also highlights the absurdity of treating this hobby as a crime.

That policy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled last April, cannot be justified as an exercise of the federal government's tax power. To the contrary, Judge Edith Jones said in the court's opinion, the ban is "an anti-revenue provision that prevents distilled spirits from coming into existence," meaning its effect is "to reduce revenue instead of raising it."

Nor is the provision consistent with "the Supreme Court's explanation of how the federal power of taxation works," Jones wrote. When Congress imposes a tax, the Court explained in 2012, it "leaves an individual with a lawful choice to do or not do a certain act, so long as he is willing to pay a tax levied on that choice." But in this case, Jones noted, would-be home distillers "have only the choice not to do as they wish or risk fines and imprisonment."

The government argued that the ban helps collect liquor taxes by prohibiting a form of production that is difficult to detect. But "Congress cannot prohibit intrastate activity solely because it might produce products hard to tax," Jones said. If it could, she warned, there would be "no limit whatsoever" to its tax power.

Under the government's logic, Jones noted, "Congress may criminalize nearly any at-home conduct only because it has the possibility of concealing taxable activity. Home-based businesses may be forbidden. Remote work may be deemed a crime."

The Trump administration, which wants the Supreme Court to overturn the 5th Circuit's decision, argues that threatening to imprison home distillers is a "necessary and proper" safeguard against tax evasion. But whatever your take on the constitutional question, that policy is morally indefensible, haphazardly enforced, and inconsistent with the federal government's treatment of wine and beer.

The lead plaintiff in this case is Scott McNutt, a member of the Hobby Distillers Association. In 2014, McNutt received a "Notice of Potential Civil and Criminal Liability" from the Treasury Department, which said it had reason to believe he "may have purchased a still capable of producing alcohol and/or equipment and materials that may be used in the manufacture of a still."

The notice warned that "federal law provides no exemptions for the production of distilled spirits for personal or family use." It added that "unlawful production of distilled spirits is a criminal offense," which it erroneously claimed was "punishable by a fine of up to $500,000" as well as "imprisonment for not more than 5 years."

Meanwhile, online retailers such as Amazon sell a wide variety of home stills, many of which are explicitly advertised as appliances designed to produce alcoholic beverages such as vodka, gin, brandy, and whiskey. Customers could be forgiven for assuming that's legal, especially since federal law has long permitted home wine and beer production "for personal or family use."

McNutt's lawyers say he "owns a still that he has used to lawfully distill fuel alcohol and seeks to 'tinker around' with beverage spirits." Another plaintiff, Thomas Cowdrey, "likewise seeks to experiment in creating new beverage spirits, including 'apple pie vodka,' for which he has developed a recipe."

Because of a law Congress enacted 158 years ago, McNutt and Cowdrey would be felons if they acted on those desires. It might be time to rethink that policy.

© Copyright 2026 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

The post A Supreme Court Case Underlines the Absurdity of the Federal Ban on Home Distilling appeared first on Reason Magazine.