Posted on 08/29/2011 7:22:55 AM PDT by Poundstone
I earned these 'entitlements'
I believe that most citizens do not understand what a federal entitlement program is. There are earned entitlements versus a special government entitlement that is given to an individual who needs assistance that is mandated by law.
What is a government entitlement? Note below that some are free and some are not! Why the government is lumping these programs together is beyond me: Only Congress would think this was a proper thing to do. How can a program like military retirement be linked with food stamps? The programs I am associated with should never be diminished by the federal government because they are either paid for by me and my wife or I have earned them. Most citizens believe all the federal entitlements are giveaway social programs and that is not true.
(Excerpt) Read more at redding.com ...
“....people are going to start thinking that you are some sort of nasty, grubby commie.”
To late!
I am having a hard time figuring out how you came up with your $350,000 in alleged contributions into SS even including the employer share. The numbers don't compute. Below are the taxes and wage caps by year since SS was instituted. And I doubt you were paying up to the wage cap at age 14. In 1971 the combined share of SS tax rates (OASDI) was 9.2% on a wage cap of $7,800 or a maximum of $718. Your 40 years of working contributing $350,000 works out to $8,750 a year.
In 1990 the cap was $51,300 and the combined OASDI tax rate was 12.4% for a total contribution of $6,361. In 2000 the cap was $76,200 and the combined tax rate was 12.4% for a contribution of $9,449. There is no way you could average an annual contribution of $8,750 a year for 40 years, especially since you started at age 14.
The main message I see is, “You can’t have what was promised, what you worked for, because ‘we’ have better uses for it.” Or in short, all of you are saying, Gimme, its ours.
I feel your pain. I have seen this coming for a long time.
This was a great article that didn’t get enough attention on FR.
A Critical Mass in America
www.stolinsky.com ^ | 08-25-11 | stolinsky
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2768668/posts
This is the goal, you're right. The tool being used is not a new one. The American Indians learned a hard lesson about Uncle Sam and his Contracts That Are So Good They're Almost Unbelievable! We're about to get a dose of that ourselves.
This is a perfect example of what happens when you trust the government to keep it's word when it's clearly just buying you off. The government is fundamentally about power, not about honor. The government will buy you off if you let it, but that's a cheap diversion to keep you voting the right way, not an eternal, holy covenant. If you forget that lesson, reality will teach a remedial class at the time of it's choosing.
You are a thief, and a false accuser now as well.
If you think you did the right thing your whole life - you're dead wrong. If you did you would know that SS was bankrupt and the only way you would get anything would be to steal from me. I knew SS was broke a generation ago as did everyone else. I remember it being the "third rail" of American politics - everyone knowing it was doomed and nobody having the HONOR to set things right.
Either you're an ignoramus or you planned the whole time that that was exactly what you would do, steal from people you thought wouldn't know any better. Which is it?
“You sound like a broken record.”
Hi Pot, I’m Kettle.
“I guess I have to answer like one.”
That’s a change in what way?
“Collecting social security that I paid is not the same as collecting welfare.”
Social security is nothing more than a tax on the productive today to issue federal paychecks to the recipients of today. It was the same in your productive working career. It is nothing more than a transfer of wealth, in other words it is WELFARE. The fact that this term rankles you, still does not change the smell of the “rose.”
“If these monthly checks are such a pain, just give me back what I paid into it.”
That is a big philisophical difference between you and me. I am more than willing to opt out of the system completely, foregoing any future payments for the ability to stop paying immediately. I would also voluntarily release any claim to the 26 years of payments that I have made. On the opposite side we have you who says, gimme, gimme, me entitled, yeah we are broke but dagnabbit, your money is belong to me!
i have been a software contractor since the late 80s. i’ve been ‘contributing’ (under threat of violence) max every year since 1991.
i’m self employed.
i pay twice as much to get 1/8th.
You are saying stupid things. Nobody here is trying to lay claim to the Social Security taxes you have previously paid. It is just that most people here are intelligent and honest enough to realize that that money is already gone.
Who is the real theif...the one who has been drawing for decades, and has already gotten their money back 4 fold???.....or is it the one that wants nothing more than their money back???.....or is it the one that says, screw both of you, you ain’t gettin a dime, and I will spend it whatever way I want????
You sir, have no honor or moral code,...you are a thief, plain and simple....
Yeah, how silly of me to think I should count on being repaid for all I paid into the social security system. How utterly selfish, as well.
(/dripping, acid sarcasm)
Do these people not have children and grandchildren?
Economic Cannibals. F’ing shame
There is no way the form lists your estimated taxes paid for SS as $350,000 (including the employer’s share) for 40 years of contributions starting at age 14. As I posted earlier, there is no way using the SS tax rates and wage caps that you could contribute that amount.
On those statements the amount you paid is a fact but the suggestion that you are entitled to anything is a lie.
“A well-reasoned reminder that some ‘entitlements’ are OWED to recipients due to what the recipient has put in. Such things as federal pensions (civilian and military), SS, etc”
Firstly, some people get SS without “put[ting] in,” so obviously in their case it’s not owed them (in your sense).
Secondly, if you think you get back what you put in, you’ve been duped. That’s not how the system works, nor how it was ever conceived to work. The money they take from you is just another tax, which is used to pay for, among other things, other people’s retirement. When you retire, you are paid for by yet other people, and so on. That’s how come the system can collapse even though everyone set to retire soon already “put in.” Because, duh, their expected payments must come from those who put in now, as opposed to decades ago.
There may float around theories connecting you paying for previous retirements and other people paying for your retirement. But they have no more substance than the idea that SS monies are set aside in a lockbox, or whatever. It just isn’t so. SS is yet another wealth transfer program, no more. As with unemployment “insurance,” if it wasn’t, you’d be doing it for yourself rather than the government doing it for you.
I don’t expect nor do I desire to receive any Federal “entitlement.”
Repaid by whom? By people not yet born when your elected government was spending every penny of the social security taxes collected from you?
You are not being silly. You are being crazy and stupid and immoral.
“Beneficiaries are entitled to those payments because they worked for them.”
Wrong. They paid for whatever they money that was taken from them was spent on. If they had truly been paying for themselves, they would have the money now (assuming they did so responsibly), wouldn’t they? Giving money to the government is not you working for benefits. It is you working for the government. The government can be nice to you in return or not, and we should all know it’ll mostly be not. Because government can be invidious, but more importantly is incompetent.
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