Social Security, Medicare, An Entitlement?
By Gary Wonning
It isn’t an entitlement. People, especially those in the main stream media and those in the government keep referring to social security as an entitlement. To me an entitlement is something given to us free and something that is automatically ours, no matter what.
Under this definition neither social security nor medicare is an entitlement. Any one who has worked for a living has paid into social security all during their working years, and they have paid heavily. During just the last 10 years of my working life, between my employer and my self we paid in almost $200 a week. That is a lot of money. Contrary to popular belief, the government isn’t giving us money, it is our money which we have given them for safe keeping. How is that going for us?
Although I am grateful to be getting social security, any private investment program with a conservative yield would have paid me a lot more than I am now getting from social security. If I could have or would have paid into a program all my life, starting when I was 20 only $20 a week with an average interest rate of 7%, it would now be paying me about the same amount of money I am receiving from social security,and this income would be from just interest. The plan would never run out of money.
Despite what the left wing politicians try to tell you, the stock market, even with it’s ups and downs, has averaged ten percent growth since the depression. Fortunately,I was able to invest about two thirds of the amount invested in social security over the years into a private pension fund. Even though the investment was less, I was able to start drawing from the fund 16 years sooner, it pays considerably more, and unless the economy totally tanks, the fund will never run out of money. Even if someday the payments are reduced, the payout will still be greater than the government program.