“That’s right, I did pay for it.”
So you are saying you paid in as much as you have or will have gotten out before you die? If you died a week ago and this is your ghost typing you can not have PAID for it. Your generation and the ones prior to that AND my own are in the process of spending up all those accumulated ss tax dollars on other things as well. You haven’t paid for your benefits that you may have recieved to date. Your SS money went to pay for a highway built in 1997 or some such. Even if you said that you shouldn’t be faulted for your money being spent on other things, but that you should get back exactly what you paid in for the SS taxes you spent over your lifetime, there is the highest probabilitly that you will spend more than you paid in post retirement. In short, you won’t have paid for it. I will.
Lots of people get screwed when it comes to SS. My grandmother for instance.
My grandfather dropped dead from a heart attack at the age of 59. He never saw a dime of his SS. He was self employed and payed in the maximum amount.
My grandmother never earned a paycheck once in her whole life. She lived off their savings untill retirement age, then filed for SS. You know what she got??
THE MINIMUM!
You know why? Because she herself never earned a dime and therefore never paid a penny into SS. The fact that her husband WAS her income and paid the MAXIMUM did not matter. He got nothing back because he died too soon. And she got the minumum and was told to feel blessed for the charity.
That’s bullsh1t in my opinion.
You go to a store and pay money for a TV. The clerk pockets the money. You still paid for the TV. I go to work and I pay money for SS, the govt spends it, I still paid for it. When I got my SS the govt sent a paper that listed how much I paid, then it said that because I paid a given amount I would get so much a month. I paid for that, what the govt does with the money I paid for SS is beyond my control, but I still paid for it.