Posted on 01/08/2015 8:42:01 AM PST by drypowder
Before reading the information below, I'd like to share an incident that happened to me a couple months ago at a Walgreens. My husband had a new prescription that cost over $200. I have the Balance Rewards card from Walgreens, which honors prescriptions as well as other purchases. So, I asked for the Balance Rewards for this prescription to be added to my Rewards account.
The pharmacist said she couldn't because I was paying for it with an entitlement. I explained that we have never been on any kind of entitlement program. She stated that Social Security and Medicare are entitlements. I tried not to come unglued, but told her nicely that my husband and I had earned our Social Security and Medicare with money paid into these accounts each and every payday. She said she understood, but it was now called an entitlement, and I couldn't get the Rewards points. I could care less about the Rewards points, but was livid that the government now called Social Security (that we paid into all our lives) an entitlement!
To be fair to Walgreens, the pharmacist said that this was a federal law -- that no one on entitlement can benefit from those payments in any way...getting reward points. Wow! The government has their hands in everything! Anyway, now please read the item below...
If you get any Social Security at all in any manner, you might want to read. Did you know this?
Unfortunately most did not, and I am one of those whose Social Security funds are direct deposited to my bank, thus, I never see the checks. Once again, our beloved congressmen are playing fast and loose with vernacular. What motive did they have for changing the name of our Social Security? Iâ?Tm sure they have a plan, and it won't be to our betterment.
Here we go. JUST REALIZED THAT WITH REQUIRED AUTO DEPOSIT, I NEVER GET TO SEE THE CHECK ALERT EVERYONE YOU KNOW. THIS AFFECTS ALL OF US.*
*Subject:* SOCIAL SECURITY becomes FEDERAL BENEFIT CHECK. Have you noticed, the Social Security check is now referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment"? I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it...
The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a Federal Benefit Payment. This isn't a benefit. It is earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 Invested in Social Security.
If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security( $375/month, including both your and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% Interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment.
Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month . That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration.
( Google it - itâ?Ts a fact).
And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.
Instead,the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (Knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And theydidn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently, they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer. But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they'recalling it a benefit, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it. Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!
Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government. Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.
*Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.*
9% of people won't forward this. Will you? *You can bet I WILL!* I THINK WE SHOULD DEMAND THAT THEIR SALARIES AND RETIREMENTS BE CALLED FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENTS. THIS WOULD BE MORE HONEST THAN WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO OUR SOCIAL SECURITY.
I seem to remember that EVERY PAYCHECK I EVER GOT IN MY LIFETIME, had a portion of it deducted and sent to the Federal Government....now it is treated like a Welfare payment! We are made second class citizens by our own government! What a slap in the kisser!
It may be the pricing based on Medicare-related schedules, not the copay that is at issue.
It gets colder here than in seattle but for a shorter period of time. Our frost ground depth is not as deep and our growing season is much longer. This year we didn’t know what to do with all our tomatoes and they just kept coming.
Sounds like you are set. I could probably get by but for the fact I live outside of a decent sized city, and I don't think any place will be safe if it is near a city.
I've been keeping my eye out for some decent acreage in a more rural area.
Thing is, if it comes to something like that, everyone will suffer. This will be no panacea. And it will get bad here too. Lets be frank, It’s kinda like making plans to survive a nuclear war.
I'm thinking worse. I suspect the government will get involved in trying to take the supplies from those who prepared and distribute them to their armies or to the people who didn't prepare.
I think the whole apparatus of government will be turned against those who try to maintain some sort of independence.
The scariest scene I’ve ever seen in a movie is the first ten minutes of Inglorious Basterds.
Haven't seen it yet. I assume it's some sort of confiscation thing?
As you read the following rant about FDR and his Congress, please bear in the following in mind. FDR would probably have gotten resistance from the Senate in passing his constitutionally indefensible “NewDeal” federal spending programs, programs like Social Security (SS), if state lawmakers hadn’t ratified the 17th Amendment (17A). By ratifying 17A, state lawmakers foolishly gave up the voices of state lawmakers in Congress, unthinkingly giving up their means to kill constitutionally indefensible appropriations bills made by the House.
After all, since the states have always had the 10th Amendment-protected power so establish their own SS programs for example, federal senators actually committed to protecting the interests of their respective states would have likely questioned why the federal government should establish such programs.
Regarding constitutionally indefensible federal spending programs like SS, when Congress established FDR’s New Deal spending programs misguided lawmakers wrongly ignored that states have never delegated to Congress, expressly via the Constitution, the specific powers to regulate, tax and spend for the programs which so many voters are now dependent on.
In fact, politically correct interpretations of the Constitution’s General Welfare Clause (1.8.1) aside, the Constitution’s silence about social spending programs means that Founding States had left it up to the states, not the federal government, to care for the people. This is evidenced by the following excerpts from the writings of respected constitutional experts; every voter should be a constitutional expert.
Consider that if Congress had done things according to the Constitution by establishing FDR’s New Deal spending programs by first successfully petitioning the states for new amendments to the Constitution which granted Congress the specific powers to establish his programs, then spending programs like SS would arguably be a constitutionally enumerated right. But since SS was established outside the framework of the Constitution, it’s services are not only constitutionally unprotected but also subject to the political whims of corrupt Congress as evidenced by SS now being regarded as an entitlement.
The bottom line is this imo. Patriots not only need to work with state and federal lawmakers to repeal 17A, but parents need to start making sure that their children are taught about the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood.
Haven’t seen it yet. I assume it’s some sort of confiscation thing?
They keep much better records today. You can’t hide.
Excellent post.
The 40% borrowed money elected Obama in 2012.
And someday there won’t be any way to manufacture more money.
They keep much better records today. You can’t hide.
And they can see you from orbit. No, you can't hide.
The best way to characterize Social Sec is:
I retire tomorrow, and at the end of the month 2.9 workers begin to send me 2000 bucks every month. If those workers can’t generate that much money, the govt will create some (at least while they are able to).
You are impervious to facts. There is a SSTF. It has been in existence since 1939 and has always been operating the same way. And the T-bills will be redeemed completely by 2034 unless SS is reformed. The SS DI Trust Fund runs out of T-bills in 2016.
And they can see you from orbit. No, you can’t hide.
The kernel, though, is that it is “cheap” for them to leave absolutely no stone unturned as a matter of their boring duties.
This had absolutely nothing to do with their social security check.......
I'm so sorry to hear that. Speaking of retiring in lower-cost areas, a co-worker of mine left California after retiring, settling down in Nicaragua with a new wife there. Lived like a king there only on his SS, able to hire a maid, and fishing daily off a dock at the back of his house. He caught all the lobster he could eat and more. Lots of people I know left California in retirement, too expensive here. Some went to Tennessee, almost as good as Kentucky, where the SS goes further.
In MANY good ways, I feel like I am living in the US of 50 years ago here. I just smile when I see a pickup truck in summertime driving down the road with people riding in the back like we did in the 60’s.
My point was simply that all of us workers have paid into SS. Welfare “clients” for the most part, have not paid into any welfare fund; all the workers DID. Earned vs. unearned.
Yep, but my curiosity got the best of me. LOL
Sorry, bad news (for you). Social Security is WELFARE these days...any money that the Elderly paid-in has already BEEN SPENT.
Tough concept, but you can thank the BABY BOOMERS for that (specifically no longer requiring SS to spend within the constraints of its income).
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