The United States needs to privatize Social Security.
Actor and comedian Kelsey Grammer made that case during a Monday interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, in a broader discussion of why socialism cannot work. Grammer singled out Social Security, the New Deal-era program created under Franklin D. Roosevelt, as an example of the country’s failed addiction to redistribution.
Social Security is routinely treated as one of America’s most sacrosanct progressive achievements. But it is also among the federal government’s largest, and fastest-growing, spending commitments, at a time when the national debt has surpassed $40 trillion. That is precisely why Social Security should not be untouchable. Americans should have more control over the money they earn and save, rather than remaining dependent on a government program that promises benefits it has repeatedly failed to fully fund.
Kelsey Grammer: We have had social security forever. It's always out of money. That's the greatest socialist program Why don’t we allow people invest 12% of their income themselves and retire off of it, they would all be millionaires. pic.twitter.com/dMjl4GGiDF
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 24, 2026
"It doesn't work. I mean, we've had Social Security forever. It's always out of money. And that's the greatest socialist program we have in our country. Nobody wants to lose it. But it doesn't work right. With 62,000 Social Security Administration employees, why?" Grammar asked. "Why would we just allow people to invest 12 percent of their income themselves and retire on it? They'd all be millionaires."
The logic of privatizing Social Security goes something like this: Social Security is not funded in the way many Americans assume it was intended to be. The basic premise was that a portion of Americans’ paychecks would be set aside, invested, and allowed to grow over time. Then, when an individual retired, they would have access to the money that had been taken from their wages throughout their working life.
But in reality, Social Security does not work that way. The government collects payroll taxes from younger workers and uses that money to subsidize current retirees. It is a pay-as-you-go system, not an individually owned retirement account, and the program’s trust-fund reserves consist of Treasury securities, rather than privately held investments.
That is why critics describe the system as one of the largest legalized Ponzi schemes in American history. It depends on a continuing stream of new workers paying into the system to sustain benefits for those who have already retired.
Grammer’s recommendation, then, is not especially controversial. Privatization would do more closely what Americans were led to expect. It would allow workers’ contributions to be invested and grow in accounts they own. It would also cut out many of the bureaucratic middlemen responsible for administering a system that is increasingly expensive, financially strained, and disconnected from the idea of personal retirement savings.
Our trust, as usual, should not rest in the promises of government, but in individual responsibility: the ability to take a portion of one’s income and invest it for the future.
The system we have now encourages dependence on Washington rather than long-term planning, ownership, and personal accountability. It asks Americans to assume that future taxpayers will carry the burden of promises made today, while offering them little control over the money taken from their own paychecks.
A system built around private investment would instead reward discipline, delayed gratification, and a commitment to building wealth over time. At a moment when the affordability crisis has made it harder for Americans to save, buy homes, and plan for the future, the country would do well to put more of Americans’ futures back into their own hands.
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