Entitlement

Here is the deal as I see it. Entitlement has become a bad word. It is associated with the giving of tax dollars to those who did nothing to earn the entitlement.

I propose changing the term for Social Security and Medicare to annuities. I have an insurance policy I have paid into since 1974, now during those 37 years the insurance company took my money, they invested it and now they are prepared to pay me an annuity on those dollars I earned and paid to them each month.

Funny thing, I worked 47 years and paid into the Social Security and Medicare  “Trust Fund” and there is where I put a substantial amount of money. Most years I paid  six percent of every dollar to Social Security, my employer also paid six percent of my wages (of course that was really sliced off the top of what the employer would have paid to me) and I also paid one and a half percent into Medicare. Had I been paying that into my insurance company, they would have a nice chunk of money with interest to pay out to me in a lump sum or so much a month until death. My insurance company would never say, “Sorry Bill but we spend all that money we took from you and now we have to make cuts to your payout.”

Funny thing, congress calls the money I earned, paid to them and now request back, an “Entitlement.” The same government calls money they pay to people who do not work enough “Earned Income” on taxes those people did not pay. I worked and paid taxes and congress spent all the money I paid in for my retirement and Medicare and now congress says they must cut back on entitlements (my retirement and health care). I paid, congress spent the money. I have seen no news of congress cutting back on their retirement or their free medical entitlements. In what universe does this sound fair?

If this congress had not passed laws that allowed U.S. companies to ship all of our manufacturing jobs overseas and given tax benefits to those same companies for doing it, I and many others could still be working today.

Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation freed slaves in this country. Congress’s lawmaking created slavery overseas for those who got our manufacturing jobs when U.S. companies spread around the world, following cheap (slave) labor.

I have been wrong before, but if you have a better explanation for what congress has done to me and millions of others in the U.S. let me know.

Bill