By Landis Lain
Not many Americans can afford to live if they do not collect the Social Security they paid for by working thirty or more years. Even if we could, why should we? We the people paid into it with every single paycheck. We could not opt out of it. It’s a contract. What is frightening about the United States of America is the sheer ugliness and greed that are being displayed by the very people who are elected to protect and govern its people. How many of you know that low-income widows and children whose parent has died also get social security if the parent worked? Blind, disabled people and people who have been hurt so much they cannot work at their prior jobs also received RSDI.
The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. In addition to several provisions for the general welfare, the Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement. 1939 Amendments to transform the program into a family-benefits social insurance system. Disability benefits were added in 1956. From 1965 to 1981 college students of deceased or disabled workers also were able to receive the benefit as they are considered dependent.
The US Congress has been using Social Security as its own slush fund to borrow from and never pays it back. The fund itself is not nearing bankruptcy. It will not die of its own accord. GOP members have made it clear that they plan to cancel Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare. Nothing is sacred to these ghouls. How dare they threaten the most vulnerable citizens to pad their own pockets? It is horrifying, but the usual path of destruction for this country that began with the slaughter and enslavement of millions of Native Peoples, segued into the slaughter and enslavement of millions of Africans, and continues with the slaughter and enslavement of its own citizens, through drugs, mass incarceration unfortunate –isms, and enforced poverty. This modern version of killing the defenseless rabbit culminated with him whose name shall not be written, his followers, and their brand of patriotic treason.
Those who tout trickle-down economics (a term used in critical references to economic policies that favor the upper-income brackets, corporations, and individuals with substantial wealth or capital) do not allow much to trickle down. The GOP would rather steal from the poor and enrich themselves in a modern-day reverse Robin Hood scenario. They’d rather hoard resources and not pay their fair share.
Social Security is not socialism. It is a necessity for most of those who receive it. For those retirees who paid into it and for those dependents who do not have parents to assist them. It’s not meant to be another account for government officials to loot. Yes, we who paid into it are entitled to it, regardless of whether or not we can do without it.
