Paul Ryan Calls Social Security a Welfare Program: [video=youtube_share;5Y3dDotrb_M]http://youtu.be/5Y3dDotrb_M[/video]
Nope, Social Security is an insurance program. Social Security refers to the "Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI)" federal program. Welfare means receiving financial aid from the government or from a private organization because of hardship and need.
Wrong. Social Security is supposed to be a contribution program from which you receive your contributions in the form of a check on reaching a certain age. If it were an insurance program, what are you insuring against, getting old? By the way, you should take that youtube link and post it on as many forums as you possibly can. Its made for stupid people, but I have faith there are enough smart Americans who will understand Ryan's words. Right now, we pay into a program and count on the good will of the government to pay us our money back in the form of benefits when we reach an age to receive those benefits. Right now, I suspect there are far more people that would contribute their funds to an individual account to be guaranteed the money when they retire.
Here in Australia, Social Security, now called Centrelink, hands out the dole, which is a fortnightly payment of around $400 per person. The only qualifier for this is your age (18+) and you don't need to have worked to get it. There's no reason an 18yo can't sit back at home on the dole his or her whole life here having never worked a day in their life. The only other requirement is you must be looking for work though that's easy to fake, it's 100% welfare here.
Um, nope you are wrong. Social security is an insurance policy against becoming permanently disabled, death, and old age. Paul Ryan himself benefited from the Social Security Survivors Benefits when his father died while he was in high school.
Funny how I forgot the SSDI and FICA naming in the payroll withholding. You are quite right about the insurance aspects of social security. Like many/most Americans(and Paul Ryan), I tend to think about the old age retirement benefits of social security, not all the other entitlements and benefits that have been tagged onto it over the years. The retirement benefit of Social Security is a contribution program, now requiring 10 years of contributions to be eligible to receive the benefit. The problem is, the Social Security trust fund that your contributions are paid into has been borrowed against and decimated, which is why the recent debt ceiling debates should have scared the crap out of any senior living on Social Security. There is no trust fund. If we can't borrow money from China, we can't pay social security benefits. It is a simple fact. So getting back to my comment about your video and stupid people, Ryan's comment about "Personalizing" your social security savings means putting the money into an actual account with your name on it that can not be raided by the folks in congress. Nothing more. Nothing less. The wrap up line on the video was classic. "Still trust Paul Ryan with your social security"? As opposed to who? The people in congress who have already raided and used the social security trust fund? An more accurate wrap up line would have said something like, "Trust congress not to continue to borrow against your social security." Considering how popular the people in Congress are, I'm sure that would be a win.