It is attitudes like that that have resulted in the situation we are in. SS is a government benefit. The money you and I paid in was spent right away. The current benefits are being paid with by loans.
If SS is a government “benefit,” then ANY payment from government in any form is also a “benefit.”
But, you say, military, contractors, and employees are not, because they provide labor and materials (something of value) in exchange for money.
Well, for the forty years that I worked, me and and my employers paid money (something of value) into something called the SS trust fund, in exchange for the promise (however tenuous it may be) that when I retired, I would be able to collect.
So there.
I suggest the only people who collect government “benefits” are those who never put up anything of value (whether money, labor, or materials) in exchange for a government check.
You surely can figure out who those types are.
I never signed a loan agreement. If the government did, it still remains a receivable to me regardless how the government gets the money to pay me.