Welfare Bums

A conservative is a person who is against welfare...for everyone else.  His own kind, he loves, and will not part with it.  And no welfare is more loved by conservatives than Social Security.  It's what let's him not have to take care of his aged parents, and what lets him have a retirement income not dependent on any foresight or saving on his part.

But wait!  I hear the cries of a thousand conservatives right now!  "Social security isn't welfare, I pay for that with my taxes!"

If you think they're not on welfare, you're probably white.

Well, for one, and has been shown in previous articles, unless a person is making at least $150,000 per year, their tax liability is generally LESS than the amount of taxes invested in each citizen of the United States, so that they are already on "welfare" to that extent.

But for two, there is no way in which one may regard the income received from Social Security at 62 as "getting your taxes back".  Here's why:

I'm 48 years old.  According to the actuarial tables published by the Social Security Administration, I'm going to live to 79.  Actually, till I'm 79 years and 5 months.  Okay, actually, I went ahead and calculated the exact time of my death, and if they are correct, and it's going to be on March 27, 2048 4:48 pm!

But I turn 62 on November 10, 2030.  Which means I'll have 17 years 4 months to collect the $660 per month they say I am currently eligible for, assuming no enormous increase in my income.  17 years and 4 months is 208 months, and that times $660 is $137,280.  But it's just my taxes back, right?   

Nope.

Paid by me:  $20,943

Paid by my employers:  $21,172

That's the total.  While it may be charitably assumed that more will be put in between now at the age of 48 and then at the age of 62, I can assure you that even in the fantastically best of circumstances, the next 14 years will not see me pay in more than I did in the past 32 years.  It would work out to about $18,425 more, if you're curious, and that's including employer contributions.  

Thus of the $137,280 I am expected to get, $76,740 will be welfare.  That is the amount above and beyond the $60,540 I'll have - if all goes well - put in by the time I'm 62.  

Now, not everyone is me, some earn a lot more.  But they then also get back more.  No matter how you slice it, what you put in is one amount, and what you get back is another amount, and the two are NOT the same.

"But...but...muh interest!", I hear some saying.  Uh huh.  But there is no "interest" as "your" money paid in was never put in any savings account.  It was paid in to the government, then your elected representatives spent it as soon as it came in.  

They'll be paying you not from a savings account marked "Your Name" but by taxing the next generation of workers.  Their taxes, when you're 62, will then go to you - just as your taxes, now, are going, in part, to the current generation of welfare bums - er, "social security recipients".  

"But...but...it's not my fault the thieves in Congress stole it!", I hear the same voice saying.  Uh huh.  I wonder who's fault it is then in a nation in which 98% of the citizens routinely vote for the two main parties that ALWAYS spend the Social Security money that comes in.  I also wonder then why that conservative doesn't view the other folks on welfare the same way.

Usually a person on food stamps has done some previous work.  So he or she has paid some taxes. Why doesn't the conservative speak of how it's "their money", and if they notice that there is more in food stamps flowing out to the individual than they paid in taxes say, "It's the interest" of that person's contribution?

Usually a woman on welfare for her dependent children has done work and paid taxes, too.  But even if she has not, the father sure has, and so has her whole extended family.  Weren't their taxes then simply being paid back out to her?  And if she brought in more in welfare for her seven children then you believe her, the father and the family paid in then why would you not just chalk that up to "interest"?

See, there is no "interest" on any of these, as none of those taxes are ever saved.  And, sorry to say, Social Security is no different.  So the point is that you do not get to look at Social Security and say, "Well, see now, there was supposed to be interest!" but then look at everyone else's benefits and say, "Now I don't see how there was supposed to be any interest on that!"

It's been known that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme from - oh, yeah, since it was created.  If you didn't get the memo, if you're the last person not to know that, then that's on you.  Everyone else - for decades - has known it.

There.  Is.  No.  Interest.  

"When we lay off our maid and she applies for food stamps,
that's 'welfare'.  When we expect a 250% return on a savings
that we never saved, that's 'interest'."

Nor is there interest on the taxes everyone else pays for everything else.  It goes in.  Various aid programs are paid out.  That's it.  You cannot condemn everyone else for holding out their hands to get some of their taxes back - and even to grab more taxes back then they paid in - while you then see your parents living off the EXACT same trick, and even while YOU plan on pulling that EXACT same trick!

"But...but...muh interest!  For realz!", I'm still hearing conservatives screech like a goth stoner hearing that he has to do community service work to keep his food stamps.  

Let's look at that "interest".  My life time contribution is expected to be $29,943 total, or the same as me saving $650 per year for 46 years.  No, I did not count the employer's contribution, because in the event that he was not being made to pay the slightly above "matching" amount, what makes you think he would?  Is it more likely he'd give it to me as an hourly raise, or give it out as a quarterly dividend to the shareholders?

But fine, we'll do the $60,540 amount, too, or the same as if "I" had invested on my own $1,316 per year for 46 years.  

First, reality - just my contribution.  It comes to $67,139.50, or half of what I'll be receiving.

Second, the conservatives unicorn and rainbow-land estimate where corporations pass the savings on to the working man and the working man responsibly saves that for his future.  That comes to $135,931.

"Ah ha!", I now hear conservatives chuckling in relief.  "See?  That's pretty much what he said earlier he'd be getting back, so the system is just giving him back what he put in plus that interest!"

Wrong.

For one, as I said, no corporation is going to "match" your contribution just on it's own.  Certainly none ever did before they were made to by the government.

Secondly, could you tell me please which bank is giving 3% interest on savings accounts?  Because that's what I used - the government's made up calculation of a hypothetical 3% interest rate that does not exist.  The actual average savings account interest over time is .06% which is a bit shy of 3%.  If we count being only 1/2 of 1/3 as "a bit shy".

Using that actual figure, and still assuming your employer really loves you, it comes out to $62,750. And you're back on welfare.  Double that, and you're still on welfare.  Cut it however you like, but only in the fairy land of chocolate rivers and 3% interest rates for half a century and no inflation and employers paying you double out of love do you even come close to that which some foolishly claim as their "right".

A "right" to get what they put in doubled each month.  A "right" to have OTHER PEOPLE - their employers - made to do that for them at gun point.  A "right" to have a pretended interest SIX times greater than reality.  A "right" to elect people who will take what they "put in" and spend it on stuff they tacitly agreed to like roads and military and courts and rocket ships and such.  A "right" to have then TWICE as much as they "put in" (and then had promptly spent) handed back to them after they quit working, as we really don't live in a utopia of high interest on savings.  

And a "right" to have that pure self-serving fantasy paid for by OTHER PEOPLE as it turned out that I was right - as I and others before have been right for the past 75 plus years.  That there is no savings. That there is no interest.  There is only you with no retirement savings holding out your hand for welfare.

You are taxed when you work and your elected representatives spend it at once.  And when you get Social Security later, it is no more or less welfare than any food stamps or subsidized rent.  Either it is all welfare - a gift from the government that you did not earn - or it is all owed, just for you being a part of the nation.

Folks like me advocate that it is owed for being a part of the collective nation state called "The United States".  Conservatives argue that it's only owed if some can kid themselves that they've "paid in". (Because as we've just seen, most are not really "paying in" in any kind of meaningful way.)

Conservatives who then have heard the phrase "Don't judge a sinner for sinning differently than you." should now learn the phrase, "Don't judge a welfare bum for taking different welfare than you."