[muawiyah]

Depends on whose definition you are using. An entitlement is something you don't have to do anything to get ~ e.g. SSI, pell grant, etc. If you have to pay for it it's not an entitlement.

Now, phasing out Social Security may or may not be a good idea, but the current loan to the government will need to be paid back or otherwise set aside by law.

Politicians who imagine they can just take it are both stupid and foolish.

[dinodino]

Your definition is wrong.

http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/entitlement_program

Social Security is completely unsustainable. Recipients receive much more than they paid in. It is a giant Ponzi scheme and needs to be terminated for the good of the country.

[danielmryan]

Calling Social Security an "entitlement" is pesky and impolitic, but that's the basis behind the Supreme Court declaring it Constitutional. They decided it was a two-in-one program: a tax (Constitutional) and a "general welfare" program (now held to be Constitutional.)

This decision was reaffirmed in an interesting 1960 case: Flemming v. Nestor. Ephraim Nestor was booted out of the country because he was a Communist, and he sued for his Social Security benefits on the grounds that he paid the taxes. The Supreme Court ruled against him, deciding that Social Security payments are not a guaranteed annuity that can be treated as a property right.

It's an interesting case on its own. It gives Congress the explicit legal authority to deny Social Security payments to deported aliens. If you read it in a certain way, it says that Congress has the right to deny Social Security payments to subversives.

[visualops]

I’ll tell you what, whenever I hear politicians talk about reforming SS in some fashion or another, and say how oh people over 55 or whatever nothing will change I just want to scream. I’m 53, a month away from 54. Those *#!ers took a big chunk of my paycheck my entire working life and they better give me my damn money back.