@sneakypete As a recovered alcoholic/addict myself, I can empathize with your point. However, this is not what Social Security was set up for. You say the law needs to be changed. But the problem is that the law has been changed already. In the beginning, the "promise" was that government would tax workers' incomes and in return would pay them money each month for the remainder of their lives after reaching age 65. That was the deal.
Social Security essentially works the same way as an annuity, except for four key points. First, as far as annuities go, it has an abysmal rate of return. Second, unlike a real annuity where the money is invested, there is no investment when it comes to Social Security. If a real investment firm did what the government does, the entire board would be facing prison for life. And third, the government declares itself the death beneficiary. With a real annuity, if the policy holder dies, the remainder of the investment would be passed on to a person of the policy holder's choosing. But with Social Security, the 'investment company' keeps that money for themselves. Again, if a real investment company did this, their entire board would end up in prison. And lastly, unlike a normal annuity where the customer gets to select among thousands of options, with Social Security, the customer gets no choice. He is forced to buy into the government plan at the point of a gun.
This was a lousy deal for the worker, but a phenomenally lucrative deal for the government. Over the course of the next eight decades, the money coming into the government far exceeded the money going out. So with all that extra cash on their hands, they decided to amend the original contract. They saw all these other people they wanted to help, and decided to include them in the payout money. They did this by dropping two of their rules. The beneficiary no longer had to have reached retirement age, and the beneficiary no longer needed to be a contributor.
Even a good ponzi scheme creator will tell you not to change the rules of the scheme once it has started. But the government did. Again and again they changed the rules, each time violating the 'contract' with the American worker.
Fast forward to 2009. For the first time in history, unemployment benefits were extended for 125 weeks. That's over two years. But they also changed the Social Security rule in that anyone still unemployed after 2½ years would be re-classified as 'permanently disabled' and would qualify for Social Security benefits for the rest of their lives. within six years, the amount of money coming in through Social Security taxes would fall short of the money being paid out. To adjust for this, two things were done. First, a portion of social security payments became subject to federal income taxes. And secondly, the retirement age was raised from 65 to 67. The contract was violated again. The number of years I can collect had been reduced by two. And if I continue to work, then the already-taxed benefits that I am 'owed' [sic] will be subject to taxation.
So no, there is no moral high ground to claim here. One can't argue against having the rules changed now when they have stood silently and allowed them to be changed again and again from Carter until now. And the worst part is that the American worker is getting screwed. Again and again. To reiterate, there is nothing in this country that contributes more to cyclic poverty from generation to generation more than does Social Security. And the sooner that the government ends it, the better.
