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What makes social security so sacrosanct? Is it because another generation promised themselves security in their retirements that they might not deserve? Is it because you have been conditioned to suck the tit of the government in your old age the same way you did your mother's in your infancy? Why is the younger generation to be saddled with the debt of helping the older one keep promises it never should have made at our expense anyway?
Let me try another spin. It will not have the foul language or insults. In additon there may actually be a fact or two in the post. I wanted to say this because this type of post does not seem to fit your style and may not want to read it.
Let's start with how you or liblady defines an entitlement. If you buy an annuity from goldman sachs that says that if you pay in a certain amount they in turn will pay you X dollars a month for the rest of your life. That is what an annuity is. Now for people who have actually worked for 40 years, made their annuity payments ( and actually are getting a lousy return on their investment) and then recieve the agreed upon payment by month ( which the government gets to set) is that what you call entitlement. Some might call it a return on their investment.
I find this whole discussion about entitlements a strawman to cloud the deficit issue. People who do not want to rein in any spending conflate social security and medicare as entitlements, thus part of the spending problem.
Most people even slightly educated about the finances of this country understand that in the short term, both medicare are social security are fully funded. As a matter of fact social security alone is in surplus of about $4 trillion. The social security fund actually owns treasuries to this amount.
So perhaps the question might be more aptly posed. Do we want to alow the federal government to steal monies that have been put away by citizens, no different than had they put the money into a 401K.
Just think of the outrage from you and others like you if the investment companies holding trillions of dollars of citizens 401Ks decided, hey let's take the money these folks put away to retire and buy windmills with the money instead. If they ask for their money back, call them crybabies and not sure what you said about them sucking something.