ENTITLEMENT - BALDERDASH

I received this in an email. Admittedly I have not checked the math. Not that that would help. I’m lousy at math. All I know is that this resonates with my spirit. I have said it before and I say it again. Social Security is not an entitlement program. That is my money they are still withholding I Paid social security for age 18 until age 58. I paid not social security for five years near the beginning while I was in school. I never made enough money after age 58 and began collecting social security at 62 so I could survive. So I paid into this “entitlement” program for 35 years and most of those years I paid the entire amount as no employer matched my funds. I was consider “self employed.”

They took my money with a promise the invest it and return it to me at retirement. Using the word “entitlement” is a manipulative attempt to make me and everyone else believe we are getting something for nothing. I am getting nothing for free. With my “benefits (both social security and medicare) I still do not come close to receiving the value of my investment minus any interest my money should have earned.

This is not an “entitlement,” it’s my money. The government forced me to contribute as an investment in my future retirement and now wants to steal what is left. Theives.

THE EMAIL

This is another example of what Rick Perry called "TREASON in high places"!!!

Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500.

If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the government pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98.

If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.

Entitlement my butt, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!

Congressional benefits ---- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement entitlements?

We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless.

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey. And now Pakistan ......home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.

Sad isn't it?