Can you tell me how much money welfare recipients have paid into that system?
Free school lunches??
WIC??
Section 8 housing??
Food stamps?
I have paid into Soc Sec since 1955. I didn’t have a choice. I was forced to do such. My employers were forced to match those ‘donations’. Since I was self-employed for over 30 years, I paid the ENTIRE amount myself!! Tell me again that this is an ‘entitlement!!!
Was I supposed to die early so I could only be a person who paid into the system & never got the withdrawal???
What have YOU paid into the Soc Sec system in your years here in the USA?
The dirty little secret about SS is that it used to be a “good deal” with lifetime benefits exceeding lifetime taxes for the average beneficiary (of course, that’s also what started the system down the road to fiscal instability).
Moreover, that no longer is true. A man who retires in 2010 who earned an average wage will have paid $290K into SS, but will only get back $256K in lifetime benefits. By 2030, lifetime taxes will exceed lifetime benefits by $74,000. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/social-security-medicare-benefits-over-lifetime.pdf
When Bernie Madoff does this, it’s called a Ponzi scheme. When the Feds do it, it’s business as usual.
That’s all very nice. None of it changes the fact that Social Security is by definition an entitlement.
Try a defition:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entitlement
See the second one:
2: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program
Social Security fits that bill.
The federal budget is divided into sections. The largest of which is entitlements. Social Security is in that section.
If you don’t happen to like using the proper definition, tough luck.
Maybe you’re simply confused that entitlement=welfare. It doesn’t mean that necessarily. However your confusion doesn’t justify twisting the language. The use of accepted terms is a requirement of having a rational debate.
Then again the way you flew off the handle when corrected makes me think you aren’t looking for such.