Posted on 03/07/2011 7:13:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In a recent column on the senior citizen lobby, I noted that Social Security is often "middle-class welfare" that bleeds the country. This offended many readers. In an e-mail, one snarled: "Social Security is not adding one penny to our national debt, you idiot." Others were more dignified: "Let's refrain from insulting individuals who have worked all their lives and contributed to the system for 50-plus years by insinuating that [their] earned benefits are welfare." Some argued that Social Security, with a $2.6 trillion trust fund, doesn't affect our budgetary predicament.
Wrong. As a rule, I don't use one column to comment on another. But I'm making an exception here because the issue is so important. Recall that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the main programs for the elderly, exceed 40 percent of federal spending. Exempting them from cuts - as polls indicate many Americans prefer - would ordain massive deficits, huge tax increases or draconian reductions in other programs. That's a disastrous formula for the future.
We don't call Social Security "welfare" because it's a pejorative term, and politicians don't want to offend. So their rhetoric classifies Social Security as something else when it isn't. Here is how I define a welfare program: First, it taxes one group to support another group, meaning it's pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people's own savings pay their later benefits. And second, Congress can constantly alter benefits, reflecting changing needs, economic conditions and politics. Social Security qualifies on both counts.
Let's start with its $2.6 trillion trust fund. Doesn't this prove that people's payroll taxes were saved to pay for future benefits, disconnecting them from our larger budget problems? Well, no. Since the 1940s, Social Security has been a pay-as-you-go program.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
Privatize it or lift the ladder up so few can get on it.. Make it optional hoping and praying many on it DIE?... SSA was a Chinese Fire Drill from the very beginning.. as is literally everything invented by democrats..
A good plan could be constructed based in the private sector.. but it would be a total re-write.. a completely different system.. But the federal government itself would have to be reduced to its core and re-invented as well..
NOT LIKELY... America is way too brain washed..
America does not even know democracy is Mob Rule by mobsters YET..
I believe that SS is unconstitutional and un-American. I do not believe that it is welfare in all cases, but, clearly, it is in some instances. In my case, I am being fleeced.
I will forgo all SS payments now and in the future if the IRS will give me back what I have paid in (including interest on that sum) minus what I have received in SS payments to date.
Medicare and Medicaid are a shell game. The medical community is underpaid for those programs, and the difference is made up by subsidies (from guess-who’s taxes) and overcharging other patients. Prescription drugs for seniors are so cheap that I feel guilty when I stand at the cash register. I pay $10 for this and $5 for that...and I know that those items are costing somebody much, much more. Socialism is sweet on the receiving end, but I'm still working, and I am paying the Marxist piper in the White House.
I hope I live long enough to be a part of what's coming when this country wakes up!
“We don’t call Social Security “welfare” because...”
...I’VE PAID >6% OF MY SALARY INTO IT FOR 40 YEARS!!!
Getting “MY MONEY” back IS NOT WELFARE!
Social Security appears to be “fair game”—yet illegal aliens siphon off untold billions for their upkeep, whether in or out of prison, the cost of their crimes, school, medical care, and ultimately, deportation (after which they quickly return). I won’t say what I think of this writer. It would get me banned for life.
The Democrats have made it into a “welfare like” program. I don’t know of any other welfare program where the recipients have to pay into it.
Just give me back all of my contributins with interest in one lump payment THEN you may call it “welfare”.
And, since the revenue that is collected gets spent on other things, and since the program itself is paid by current taxpayers, not from their own special savings account (what you paid in is long gone), we should eliminate the separate withholding. Roll the SS tax rate into the income tax rates. Once you do that, you'll have an easier time phasing out the program.
To sum up:
1. Start referring to SS for what it is--a safety net for those who can't take care of themselves--not a retirement account.
2. Eliminate the separate withholding, which is a fiction anyway, and roll the SS rate into the income tax. Once SS is collected through general taxation, it will be easier to kill, because the phony idea that you get back what you "invested" will be put to rest.
And taxed to the max, in some places, as high as 50%.
The system of taxes to pay the debt of our government’s excessive borrowing to buy votes needs to end. Fractional Reserve Banking is required to have a welfare state.
Our financial system is NOT capitalism. It is socialist.
Social security, Public Schools, even taxes are all socialist in their implementation.
It is time we realize that this is not working, we need to have sound money, not a welfare state.
I am 64. Like good little citizens, we paid into the Social Security System for many YEARS, being told it was for our RETIREMENT, and it was being put in a “LOCKBOX” for our “security”.
Now, a Senator accuses us of “sucking at the government tit”. How asinine!
I estimate that HE’S sucking at the tit to the tune of about a quarter million dollars annually, all things considered - and has done for many years as a “lawmaker”.
These “lawmakers”, like Al Gore and his “LOCKBOX”, discovered one day late in the game they could raid the SS
fund and use the funds for their pet pork projects in their home states as a means of bribing their constituency for votes.
As far as I go, these crooked politicians can take Social Security and stick it where the sun don’t shine. What they’ve done is CRIMINAL.
Interesting proposition.
I have to do some math and report back.
I get a statement from socialist security every year. It tells how much I have put into the system, among other things. I have put over 360k into this system. If he wants to call it welfare, fine. Just pay me back my 360k, and I will opt out...until I get my cash back, it is not welfare, and this guy is an idiot. Wanna make the system plausable again? Why do kids get social security to go to college, and get spending money to boot, if someone kicks the bucket?
Why do you get it if you become disabled? These are just the start. The system itself has become a welfare program, but do not call the people who have paid into it welfare recipients ( unless they do not have it coming, as outlined above )Now, gimme my money back
And I did as well. There were a number of years running when I maxed out my payments to SS around September of those years and it was like getting a raise. Methinks that there is something wrong with this fellow's "equation" and I believe that "something" is the huge number of people receiving benefits under one name or another who've never paid a dime into the system.
I'm certainly glad to agree that the whole wealth redistribution scheme was a farce from the very beginning.
Welfare? No more than a 401k. We paid into that—in fact, lots of us paid more into the SS system than we’ll ever get back. Either they should be honest and call it a TAX, or pay us when the time comes and shut the heck up about it.
(And by the way, yes, they ARE eyeing private 401ks. Hang onto yours for dear life—some Freepers will no doubt agree with them when they come for it, claiming it’s just “another welfare system.” Apparently, there’s no honor when it comes to someone else’s retirement funds.)
The social security number was your individual policy number.
I was never intended as a retirement plan for everyone.
Slowly over the years the politicians have turned it into their personal piggy bank to dole out favors.
It was not welfare or an earned benefit or a retirement plan or medicare.
Let me help you out here. I’m one.
And you would tell them what? That Robert Samuelson, one of the most left-wing guys in media, agrees with you and not them?
“We don’t call Social Security “welfare” because...”
...I’VE PAID >6% OF MY SALARY INTO IT FOR 40 YEARS!!!
Getting “MY MONEY” back IS NOT WELFARE!”
For you is is not. For the people who got your money, more than they paid in, it is and still is. There is case on this, I don’t have it to post to, but it was determined long ago that Social Security is not a right.
You have a right to be mad about all of the socialist lies this country, the MSM, the politicians, the FED, have been telling all these years. Because the dirty truth is, there is not enough money left now.
Where do we go from here?
You won’t be alone in your anger. But there are too many house of cards in this country with the current monetary system to remain healthy.
43% of people over 60 voted for Obama. 50% of baby boomners from 45 to 59 voted for him. Smart move. Enjoy.
Younger folks are even dumber.
Keep watching Obama TV it ALL supports him.
My idea is to A) start educating people that SS is not for retirement, but for the needy and B) eliminate the separate withholding, which is an accounting fiction anyway.If we can do those two things, I believe we can eventually phase the crappy thing out.
And by the way, I've been in the workplace for 20 plus years. I've pissed away plenty of money through SS taxes. But I recognize that a) that money is already gone b) it was spent on general funding c) the program is going to kill our country if it isn't radically changed (reduced.)
I have no idea who this writer is. That a left-winger gets it on SS is amazing. That conservatives refuse to reform it is sad.
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