Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but there is NO “contractual obligation.” Period, end of story.
It wasn’t I who said this. The opinion I’m about to give you is that of the United States Supreme Court, in 1960, in the case Fleming v. Nestor. You can google around to find it all over the various law sites, but I’ll give you the hard-truth quotes:
“Held:
...
2. A person covered by the Social Security Act has not such a right in old-age benefit payments as would make every defeasance of “accrued” interests violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 608-611.
(a) The noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits are based on his contractual premium payments. Pp. 608-610.
(b) To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of “accrued property rights” would deprive it of the flexibility and [363 U.S. 603, 604] boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands and which Congress probably had in mind when it expressly reserved the right to alter, amend or repeal any provision of the Act. Pp. 610-611.”
...
“The Social Security system may be accurately described as a form of social insurance, enacted pursuant to Congress’ power to “spend money in aid of the `general welfare,’” Helvering v. Davis, supra, at 640, whereby persons gainfully employed, and those who employ them, are taxed to permit the payment of benefits to the retired and disabled, and their dependents. Plainly the expectation is that many members of the present productive work force will in turn become beneficiaries rather than supporters of the program. But each worker’s benefits, though flowing from the contributions he made to the [363 U.S. 603, 610] national economy while actively employed, are not dependent on the degree to which he was called upon to support the system by taxation. It is apparent that the noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.”
As I said, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But I’m not just whipping some opinion of mine out of my ass. This is the case law of the land, period, end of story. There is no “contract” and the Congress can cut or gut your benefits.
” but there is NO “contractual obligation.” “
As I concede the point, I also point out that you (almost) masterfully seized on minutia to deflect from the main thrust of my comment - that as long as the Gummint has money to spend on other programs, there is no moral basis for defaulting on this obligation (call it ‘legal’ or ‘moral’ - it still works out the same)...
Without checking, I’ll bet that you were among those who expressed outrage on the Mortgage Crisis threads that the ‘deadbeats’ defaulting on mortgages and buying Cadillacs with the money.. You can’t have ‘situational morality’......