From a legal standpoint, quesney is correct. There are no private property rights attached to Social Security. But you are correct as far as perception goes. Everyone who worked in the private sector paid in to it. Therefore it isn’t “welfare.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemming_v._Nestor
“From a legal standpoint, quesney is correct. There are no private property rights attached to Social Security. But you are correct as far as perception goes. Everyone who worked in the private sector paid in to it. Therefore it isn’t “welfare.””
Let me see if I can make a clearer distinction here.
It is different from other government benefits in that you contributed to what you might have thought at some point was a secure, protected pension that was virtually your private property.
But it exactly like other government benefits in that, because what you contributed was **stolen/raided/spent***, the money to pay your social security comes directly from other currently working taxpayers.
The burden to those taxpayers is the same as the burden to them of funding other government benefits. And that burden is going to grow - dramatically - in the years to come.