Social Security and Medicare are not benefits. If you’ve worked you’ve paid into them, probably most of your life. How come they NEVER talk about cutting WELFARE?
Yes, you did pay into SS & Medicare. In SS’s case the money went out the door to fund the monthly SS of the then retirees. In return you got an “IOU” that when you retire you were “entitled” to the money the current working generation is paying in. Note the money you paid in never became your money - your asset. You lost ownership when the government took the money! There have been several USSC decisions saying you have no ownership right (Not an asset!) in the money. If it did it could become part of your estate. It can’t, it isn’t your money.
In short, the SS tax is a tax, like any other tax. So far, the political will exists to execute the part of the law that says when you retire the government honors the IOU. The day may come when it won’t. Since its a tax - revenue to the government that they turn around and send to another demographic (just older!). It sounds a lot like programs where the government takes from the working and sends to those not working. Well, I’ll call it ‘wealth redistribution’; people have other names for that.
Past USSC decisions said this ‘wealth redistribution’ was Constitutional. Since its a past USSC decision it could now be used as a ‘precedent’. (Personally, I don’t see it! One of those FDR Era decisions, I guess you had to be there!) I think this ‘precedent’ gave Roberts the model to declare ZeroCare Constitutional.
SS is a Ponzi Scheme; they don’t end well! In 1940 159.4 workers paid in for every retiree receiving, today it’s like 2.4 to 2.8 (2013-2014 number) working paying in for every recipient.
Exactly.
Have you ever noticed how they get all exercised over SS going bankrupt but you never hear about welfare running out?
Wonder why?