[sphinx]

You are 100% wrong about how Social Security works.

But what you are describing is how Social Security SHOULD work: your money plus your employer match SHOULD go into your personal account, where it would be saved, invested, earn interest, and eventually pay for your retirement with any residual eventually going to your heirs.

Many of us believe Social Security should be reformed along these lines. For our troubles we are demonized by the Ponzi scheme crowd as reckless “privatizers,” while a plurality of the public believes wrongly that Social Security already is a thrift savings and investment plan. The politics of this are quite insane.

This is the Big Lie on steroids and compounded over 75 years of relentless propaganda. People think they already have something that Social Security in fact is not and has never been. Reformers want to bring this promised vision into reality, and we are pilloried. Insane.

[chimera]

It is important to remember in these discussions that the USSC has already ruled on the question of SSI being a “right”, or “guarantee”. The case of Fleming v. Nestor (1960) basically said the government was encouraging the public’s misunderstanding that SS was an entitlement by calling payments into it “contributions”. In fact, the court ruled, payments into SS are nothing more than taxes (and hello to you, John Roberts), and payments out of it are basically welfare. As such, the government can change, or even suspend payments at any time in the future. I would guess that a majority of the public, if asked, believes that because you “paid into” SS, you are “entitled” to at least what you paid in. The USSC says you are not.