SOCIAL SECURITY NOW CALLED 'FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENT'/ENTITLEMENT!

emal | 12/8/2012 | email edited by Ib Jensen

[IbJensen]

Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment"?

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.”This isn’t a benefit – its earned income!

Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too.

It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.

If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both your and your employer’s contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment.

Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration (Google it - it’s a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They “forgot” that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them.

And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently, they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer. But is it our fault they misused our investments?

And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit,” as if we never worked to earn every penny of it. Just because they “borrowed” the money, doesn't mean that our investments were a charity! Let’s take a stand.

We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government –

Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.

Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

[Sacajaweau]

Not only do you pay into it...When you do get it...They steal from it for Medicare Part B.

Every month, they will take $104 out of our SS checks next year....That would be most of us who are over 65) That's 11.1% of MY SS check. The "rate" was $3 for Medicare Part B when it started.

As usual, Seniors are getting scr**** royally because most of that "stolen money" is likely paid to Medicaid folks...Ahhhhhh...Socialism !!

[redgolum]

I agree.

Though prepare to get slammed as all the fair weather “fiscal conservatives” scream “ITS MY MONEY AND I WANT IT NOW!”

[muawiyah]

If he’s heavily armed you really ought to refocus your arguments to other topics though.

[muawiyah]

Any definition that depends solely on the Supreme Court is, in the long run, worthless ~ they drift and meander and change their minds ~

[muawiyah]

Present value analysis is useful for comparing projects but it's really useless for predicting value.

There are all sorts of reasons lifespan might change ~ and inflation can definitely change the picture, but so can deflation.

As long as the US government owns 30% of the land in this country, and an even higher percentage of the subsurface mineral rights, there will be funds to pay all obligations.

[RFEngineer]

“Any definition that depends solely on the Supreme Court is, in the long run, worthless ~ they drift and meander and change their minds ~”

As worthless as a social security “social contract”.

The Supreme Court can rule any way they wish, we still don’t have the money.

[EternalVigilance]

Yep.

[zagger]

You are exactly correct! Thanks.

[RFEngineer]

“As long as the US government owns 30% of the land in this country, and an even higher percentage of the subsurface mineral rights, there will be funds to pay all obligations. “

Sort of a “reverse Louisiana Purchase” sale to foreigners with Social Security recipients as the sole beneficiary? I don’t think so.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

So, the mugger wants you to call him generous for not taking your clothes, and you’re complaining?

[VRWC For Truth]

The gov’t isn’t going to sell its land. It will sell your land first and there won’t be anything you can do about it. They already stole your Social Security.

[CapnJack]

I consider Social Security “stolen money” or “stolen goods”.

Did you sign a legal contract with the gov’t to pay into it and receive payments at a certain time.

No, you didn't. You and I have had it take from us at the point of a gun in all intents and purposes.

So, SS is stolen property ... period.

I don't care what they call it and don't plan on ever seeing a dime from it.

Unless it is declared Unconstitutional as it should be, it should always be declared stolen property.

[RFEngineer]

““ITS MY MONEY AND I WANT IT NOW!””

There is something about this issue that makes people think they can, themselves, rule by edict.

You pointed out the most common one. Other honorable mentions are:

“First cut welfare for illegal immigrants (or insert favorite program here) before you cut MY benefit”

“Cut Congressional raises”

“Cut Federal salaries”

All of which are noble thoughts, but have negligible effect on the overall solvency of the nation and ability to pay any remaining entitlements.

[muawiyah]

The simplest method is to issue a currency backed by assets ~ you could use gold, silver, oil, farmland, rent payments for grazing rights, various other mineral rights, etc.

Then you pay your bills with currency redeemable with that currency ~ or, as a recipient, maybe you pay your bills with that currency.

America has traditionally operated with many different currencies active at the same time ~ then we have credit cards ~ they create a form of money ~ the fed tracks that money. You would be well advised to review the definitions for M0, M1, M2, M3 and M4

It's not as complex as the economists and financial wizards would like for you to believe, but there it is!

[muawiyah]

The government sells land all the time.

[ExTexasRedhead]

Germany 1933? Ya think? Remember what happened after that.

[kabar]

You seem to have bought into the liberal argument that you earned your SS and Medicare. The reality is that those on SS and Medicare today are receiving far more in benefits than they ever paid into the system in terms of contributions. For example, you get three times more out of Medicare than you paid into the system.

This graph shows that the average man and woman (average defined in the study as average income over their working lives and living to the average life expectancy) who start receiving benefits in 2010 get over 3 times more in benefits than they pay in to the system! Of importance, the study accounts for inflation by calculating all past taxes and future payments in 2010 dollars to provide an accurate comparison.

If the notion that Medicare recipients are simply "getting back what they paid in" is false then where is the money coming from? Simply, the excess received is being borrowed from younger generations and the cost is more than we can bear.

You also seem to believe that SS is a pension scheme, not an insurance program. First, your contributions don't belong to you once put into the system. That was decided by SCOTUS some time ago, i.e., Flemming vs Nestor 1960.

Second, you could pay into SS for 50 years, drop dead the day before you would start collecting payments, and your estate would never receive a dime save for a small burial allowance. Why Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme

"Social Security's actuaries make such a calculation. It says that Social Security's unfunded liability in perpetuity is $17.5 trillion (treating the trust fund as meaningless). The program would need that much money today in a real trust fund outside the government earning a true return to pay for all the benefits that have been promised over and above future Social Security taxes. In effect, the capital stock of the nation would have to be $17.5 trillion larger than it is right now. Alternatively, the payroll tax rate would have to rise by 4%."

"To put it another way, Social Security's unfunded liability equals 1.3% of the gross domestic product. So if we were to fund its deficit with general revenues, income taxes would have to rise by 1.3% of GDP immediately and forever. With the personal income tax raising about 10% of GDP in coming years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, this means that every taxpayer would have to pay 13% more just to make sure that all Social Security benefits currently promised will be paid." SS has been running in the red since 2010.

I find it disturbing and disappointing that on a conservative website, we still have people bleating about the fact that they have paid for SS and Medicare and want their money because they "earned it." Nothing could be further from the truth. Your benefits are being subsidized by the taxpayer and future generations that are accruing a mountain of debt to pay for the benefits you enjoy or will enjoy.

For example, did you know that the premiums collected for Medicare Parts B and D pay for only 25% of the costs--by law. The rest of the money comes from the General Fund. In FY 2011 this came to $222 billion and 42 cents of every federal dollar spent is borrowed. So 42% of the tab is passed on to future generations to pay off. If Medicare is not reformed, it will consume the entire federal budget. This will entail higher payments and reduced benefits.

Mediare Part A has been running in the red since 2008.

[jch10]

You know, I never thought about that.....I just resented that I was taxed again on SS, uh, FBP. If food stamps were taxed, we'd just have to give more to make up for the taxes...vicious cycle.

[RFEngineer]

“The simplest method is to issue a currency backed by assets”

So we merely give all the remaining assets of the country to favored entitlement recipients. Yes, that seems simple enough.

[winodog]

I built block divider walls between properties for many a year. Usually the first one to build built the wall and swallowed it. Sometimes the other property owner went in half.
But the ones that complained the most and caused the most trouble were the ones that contributed nothing and were already built and living there.

they got a free wall that cost a few thousand and they caused the most trouble I have ever seen in every way possible