You’re far from the first to post “flame away” when anticipating disagreement, so “stolen” is misapplied, just as it is in the instance of a pension. “Stolen” is also misapplied when referring to Social Security. There always have been more benefits paid out to beneficiaries than paid in. Problem is, there are quite a few people who will become a burden on the state without it, it’s all they have. I’m not on board with throwing them out into the street, many who own their homes and have been responsible. Some people just don’t make that much money, and saving anything above what was taken from them has not been possible. There are many, many people who are no financial genius and to pretend that there aren’t is foolhardy. The nation and the people need some assurance of a means of support in their old age. The existing scheme has been bastardized and used to pay for every leftist pipedream to come down the pike. That’s been the problem. Social Darwinism and throwing elderly out into the street is not the answer and it won’t fly politically.
“Stolen” is also misapplied when referring to Social Security. There always have been more benefits paid out to beneficiaries than paid in. Not so. SS used to be a cash cow taking in more in revenue than it paid out in benefits. It is the reason why the excess was put into the SSTF in the form of interest bearing, non-market T-bills, which now total around $2.4 trillion.
In the early 1980s, SS went into the red, i.e., benefits exceeded revenue. It resulted in the Faustian bargain between Reagan and Tip O'Neil that increased taxes and reduced benefits, including raising the retirement age for full benefits from 65 to 67. They also forced all new hire federal employees into SS.
Now SS is costing us money as the General Fund must redeem T-bills from the SSTF to make up the shortfall.
Source: CBO “Combined OASDI Trust Funds; January 2011 Baseline” 26 Jan 2011.
Note: See “Primary Surplus” line (which is negative, indicating a deficit)
Social Security has passed a tipping point. For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last — as long predicted — become a drag on the government’s overall finances.