The Real Problem

Truth and frustration | Dec 8, 2011 | Semper - Vanity

[CowboyJay]

"My government pension was earned"

No doubt. You've earned the right to a retirement. But, IMO anyone accepting a gov't pension (please try not to take this personally) should have to give up the right to vote. Nobody should be able to more-or-less vote themselves more money directly from the public till. That's how all democracies (even representative democracies) fail.

"I paid for my social security"

A common misconception. There is no trust fund that you paid into. What you paid was an additional payroll tax that paid for the retirement benefits your parents' generation received, along with funding all the other various government programs your generation, in general, kept voting for. The money you paid in was gone before you retired, and the people working today do not owe you SS or medical benefits any more than you owe them welfare entitlements (which is exactly what SS and medicare were from day one). If you want your FICA contributions back, take it back from your parents - assuming they're not deceased. They (and YOU) have already spent every last dime of it.

IMO, we can reform SS, medicare, and gov't pensions now, or they will go away sometime in the next decade when the economy collapses under their weight. And "how we got here" is very simple. We allowed people who don't produce anything to vote themselves pretty much directly into the pockets of those that do.

Getting very tired of the "it's not socialism when we do it GOP crowd.