I still object to it being lumped in with the welfare herd. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14, and I’m a great-grandpa now (still not retired). With the boom/bust cycles in my industry over the decades, the money I paid into Social Security is as much as I have been able to set aside for retirement (and keep there).
I have paid more in income taxes in just the last 5 years than that amount (well over), so count that, too. Somehow, the stigma of “entitlement” doesn’t fit. It isn’t like I was some illegal who popped up to draw benefits—I’ve been paying in for half a century.[/i]
Please don’t misunderstand me, and I don’t think you do, but just to make sure I’m clear: I’m not talking about what’s right/deserved. I’m talking about reality. The reality is, from a purely financial perspective, there is no “pension fund”. There is no savings safebox where everything you contributed has been held. It’s all been spent.
The money being paid to social security beneficiaries comes out of general tax revenue paid by an ever-shrinking number of ever-poorer, ever-more-burdened (on average) working taxpayers. From a pure, financial-reality perspective, it’s a government benefit and, politically, will be treated as such. The government is using other people’s money to pay your benefits. It’s not drawing on any secured stash of your past contributions - those contributions are all gone.
Government benefits are government spending paid for tax revenue from current taxpayers (and borrowing).
The time to argue about that is long past, after years of government spending more or taxing less and saving less than it should have and never treating your contributions as your property in the first place.
Is it right, no? Is it reality, yes. Is it going to get uglier, absolutely. Brace yourself.
At times the two approach each other, but we do not live in those times.
Yes, I understand the distinction--and the difference, but I like to point it out.
You nailed it.
However most people here want to cut everyone else’s benefits, but increase their own.
SS, military and non military pensions, Medicare, and every other government benefit will have to be cut back. Not maybe, it will have to be. Either through inflation or out and out cuts.
A few years back, I realized that real conservatism in a fiscal sense was dead. Many complain about the cost of government, no one really wants to cut it because it would mean they would have to accept cuts themselves.
We are screwed.
And it will get ugly. If I have the choice to feed my family, or support SS or pensions, you know which one I will choose.
“Please don’t misunderstand me, and I don’t think you do, but just to make sure I’m clear: I’m not talking about what’s right/deserved. I’m talking about reality. The reality is, from a purely financial perspective, there is no “pension fund”. There is no savings safebox where everything you contributed has been held. It’s all been spent.
The money being paid to social security beneficiaries comes out of general tax revenue paid by an ever-shrinking number of ever-poorer, ever-more-burdened (on average) working taxpayers. From a pure, financial-reality perspective, it’s a government benefit and, politically, will be treated as such. The government is using other people’s money to pay your benefits. It’s not drawing on any secured stash of your past contributions - those contributions are all gone.
Government benefits are government spending paid for tax revenue from current taxpayers (and borrowing).
The time to argue about that is long past, after years of government spending more or taxing less and saving less than it should have and never treating your contributions as your property in the first place.
Is it right, no? Is it reality, yes. Is it going to get uglier, absolutely. Brace yourself.”
Brilliant post.
The problem is not whether people deserve their social security or VA benefits.
We can see that even here people become defensive and proprietary about them.
So they will vote for whoever will keep those payments coming.
Even if the country is going bankrupt.
THAT is the problem with so many getting a check from the government, earned or not.
This was planned long ago. And now more are added to the list -federal workers have increased, EBT recipients have increased, SSDI recipients have increased, free lunch recipients have increased, welfare recipients have increased, Medicaid recipients have increased thx to Obamacare, and of course Obamacare subsidies recipients have increased.
That’s a big pool of people wanting the status quo unchanged.
“The time to argue about that is long past, after years of government spending more or taxing less and saving less than it should have and never treating your contributions as your property in the first place.”
Hell, the government thinks that the money you “earn” is not even your money.
Just over the past decade how many times has it come up where they want to take your 401k’s and IRA’s because it’s really not “your” money and you can’t be trusted to spend it wisely?