I paid for it - to the tune of 15% in some years and 12.5% in others. I paid so much in FICA that I maxed out for more than 20 years of my working life.
That’s *MY* money, taken from me forcibly by the Gubmint.
I want it back.
Good luck with that! You have believed a well orchestrated LIE for most of your life.Its not your fault, but you have been CONNED. The courts decided around 1960 that Social Security is a tax and an entitlement. You must pay the tax, because the Federal Government has the Authority to tax you. But the government is in no way obligated to pay you anything in return. Once you are taxed, it is no longer your money - it is theirs - to do as they please. For the record, ALL TAXES are taken from me forcibly by the Gubmint. Such is the nature of a tax.
They can raise the benefit, they can lower the benefit, they can do away with the benefit altogether, entirely at their discretion. And you have no legal recourse.
For years the Federal Government has maintained a fuzzy link between how much one pays into Social Security, and how much benefit one receives. But the purpose of this fuzzy link is to delude the public into the belief that Social Security is an investment or an annuity. It is not.
Social Security is about taxing the productive members of society by deluding them into thinking they are investing for themselves. It is about reducing self-sufficient wage-earning Americans to a state of government dependancy. It is about control.
Exactly.