If, however, you die in the first month of your eligibility and you leave no minor children and have no wife all benefits cease to exist. Even a widow will only receive half of your monthly payment iof whe is not eligible by virtue of her own employment.
It is, in sum and total, a welfare program. There is no fund and you have no accrued account.
I'm quite aware of that fact. No private property rights attach to the "fund" as per Flemming v. Nestor. However, I do have a political right to the money, just as much as any other citizen. More so, in my opinion, since I helped fund it.
What it boils down to is there will only be a political solution. And I intend to fight for my interests.
Several years ago, I read this interesting Cato Institute piece about SS and private property.
http://www.socialsecurity.org/pubs/ssps/ssp19.pdf
I agree with what it says. The problem is how to get from here to there. The solution often posited is that we Boomers who have saved on our own and don’t “need” SS should just bend over “for the common good.”
Of course that solution is merely another re-telling of Aesop’s The Grasshopper and the Ant or The Little Red Hen.
I propose the grasshopper should feel cold for a bit and the rest of the barnyard might go hungry for a day or two.