Normally you and I agree on a lot, but I must take exception here.
Social Security is not an entitlement program.
I paid for it - to the tune of 15% in some years and 12.5% in others. I paid so much in FICA that I maxed out for more than 20 years of my working life.
That’s *MY* money, taken from me forcibly by the Gubmint.
I want it back.
Of course, you want it back.
You probably won't get it back, though.
/johnny
Not only you but your employer contributed as well. You and I worked our whole lives for it and we did not have a choice - it was a forced contribution. If the government had treated it like such, and not added disability, etc to it would be solvent.
You are correct.
We paid into the system what the GOVERNMENT EXPERTS required us to.
We did NOT set the rates or the top of the thresholds.....they did.
We are NOT setting the rate of return we are now receiving-—they are.
Telling me that I paid & my employer paid INVOLUNTARILY into that system for over 50 years & now telling me I am not allowed to collect anything is just plain stupid. \
I have been self-employed for over 25 years of those 50 years, so I had to pay BOTH halves—15.3%—and that came out of my earnings before I paid mortgage payments or anything else.
Good Luck Pal. SSI is a TAX as ruled by the USSC. The government is under NO legal requirement to pay you a dime.
Yes it is and it is a Ponzi scheme.
That's not how the government sees it.
I paid for it - to the tune of 15% in some years and 12.5% in others. I paid so much in FICA that I maxed out for more than 20 years of my working life.
That’s *MY* money, taken from me forcibly by the Gubmint.
I want it back.
Good luck with that! You have believed a well orchestrated LIE for most of your life.Its not your fault, but you have been CONNED. The courts decided around 1960 that Social Security is a tax and an entitlement. You must pay the tax, because the Federal Government has the Authority to tax you. But the government is in no way obligated to pay you anything in return. Once you are taxed, it is no longer your money - it is theirs - to do as they please. For the record, ALL TAXES are taken from me forcibly by the Gubmint. Such is the nature of a tax.
They can raise the benefit, they can lower the benefit, they can do away with the benefit altogether, entirely at their discretion. And you have no legal recourse.
For years the Federal Government has maintained a fuzzy link between how much one pays into Social Security, and how much benefit one receives. But the purpose of this fuzzy link is to delude the public into the belief that Social Security is an investment or an annuity. It is not.
Social Security is about taxing the productive members of society by deluding them into thinking they are investing for themselves. It is about reducing self-sufficient wage-earning Americans to a state of government dependancy. It is about control.
I agree. I have been paying into it since 1964. I can’t imagine how much money I would have if I had invested it myself.