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"...money is not collected in support of the government, but rather, in support of the contributors..."

Right there is the nut of the controversy. Some say SocSec collects money to be used by contributors and most people here see it as a Ponzi scam for gov't spending. Two reasons make me favor the second theory over the first. One is that SocSec taxes have always been more than SocSec disbursements with surplus being immediately spent elsewhere. The other is that whenever governments reach the 'zero excess' point they slash/eliminate the program.

The money is collected to support the government, and payouts to contributors is held at the minimum needed to keep the scam going.

You and I see it that way, most conservatives see it that way; but that is not its intended purpose, its legislatively enacted function, nor the way the majority of the country sees it. Here is a depressing poll result: Among those self-identified as Tea Partiers, 58% believe government spending controls must not include any benefit changes in SS or Medicare. That is a result from the supposedly single most fiscally conservative politically identifiable group in the country.

I wish FR was representative of the electorate. Hell, as lame as it is, I wish the Republican Party was. But it isn't. Most people don't even understand that there is no Social Security "trust fund." Many of those who do still don't understand why the only feasible place for the government to have put the money (in a public scheme) is in public debt.

The truth is no politician is ever going to allow one dime of a promised Social Security benefit to go missing -- nominally, at least. Consequently that debt will be monetized with consequences nearly as devastating as default, and everyone, not merely the recipients will pay.

Those demanding their benefits do not now, and will not ever, believe that Social Security is a tax to be paid into the general revenue. And based on the law, what politicians have promised them, and their own expectations, they will be right. Dead right. But right all the same.

But allowing them to count their entitlement withholding as entitlements on one hand, and taxes on the other, is double counting. And that double counting allows people who are making NO contribution to the country's common defense or general welfare to scream that they're "taxed" on the one hand, and "entitled" on the other.

It can't be both.

And it isn't.

We need to tax the poor; it's time to stop giving them excuses for not contributing. That is what you and the Democrat talking heads are doing by insisting that SS/MC withholding is the same kind of tax as the FIT.