Chapman conflates a lot of things here that don’t actually fit together. But the false conflation is necessary to support his Illuminati conspiracy theory. (Also known as the slowest-moving conspiracy theory in the history of civilization.)
He states a common misunderstanding here:
“...Standard and Poor’s downgraded the US debt rating based upon there not being large enough cuts in what Congress likes to call entitlements, which are not entitlements, but paid for benefits.”
Social Security was initiated as a paid-for benefit, but that went away in 1968 when LBJ and Congress stole the trust fund and starting spending its surplus wherever they pleased. From that point forward, Social Security became a pay-as-you-go tax, with distributions paid out of current revenue.
The system worked for quite some time, as there were enough people paying in to ensure a surplus above SS distibutions. The tax was able to pay SS recipients and generate a large surplus which was spent on whatever Congress liked. Now, due to demographics, only 4 people pay in for every SS recipient. We are heading into deficit.
There is no trust fund, and there have been no paid-for benefits for over 40 years. Your SS withholding tax since 1968 is a tax like all the other taxes you pay. You are no more entitled to SS benefits than you are to your own missle out of your taxes paid for defense. The govt decides how to spend tax revenues. Any “entitlement” under SS was legislated out of existence in 1968, just as it was legislated into existence. We lost our “entitlement” in 1968, it’s a little late to claim we are losing it now.
The fight over allocation of insufficient revenue is just beginning. The old folks (I’m 62) have a lot of votes. We will keep receiving payments for some time at the expense of other programs. SS recipients have been doing so since 1968.
The proper name for what is happening here is politics, not conspiracy. Conspiracy sells better though.
Sounds like your ‘every day’ John Bircher to me.