SS is just welfare for the old.

[gulliver]

Ultimately, isn't that what a lot of Republican leaders really think?

[w4rma]

1. Yes. And welfare for corporations and the very wealthy are good.

</sarcasm>

[NMDemDist2]

2. yeah, welfare I have paid into every week of every year I've worked

I'd call that an annuity :shrug:

[Cha]

3. Welfare that is taken out of our

salaries to store up for when we can really use it.

It's Security in our later years that we paid in to..I don't care what those blood-sucking monsters have to say about it.

[Clarkie1]

4. A lot of Republicans

believe that the government shouldn't be in the business of providing any sort of "social security," and here I mean the term not as it common applies to a specific goverment program, but the idea of we the people forming various social contracts for the common good of all.

Most Repubicans believe individuals and families should be the ones solely responsible for providing health security, economic security, and retirement security for themselves and their kin...all of these are a kind of "social security" in the broadest sense of the word. They don't see the government an entity owned by the people for the people...they see govenment as a separate, onerous entity separate from the the people that takes from the people.

We do need an ownership society, but not in Bush's narrow capitalistic sense. We need an ownership society where people once again take ownership of their government, and the government serves the people.

[NMDemDist2]

5. Bush's "Ownership Society" should be called the Tough Luck Society

cuz if you hit a hard patch, it's tough luck for you buddy

bastards

[LiberalFighter]

6. We need a lawyer to figure out a way to take all of dipshits money away...

when he gets out of the WH

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Carolab]

8. It's not WELFARE. Because WE PAY FOR IT!

Welfare is something you get for nothing.

[LittleWoman]

9. SS is more than for old age

SS is also known as OASDI--Old Age, Survivor and Disability Insurance. We need to get the Survivor and Disability parts out there in the discussion. The Survivor part comes in when a wage earner dies and leaves children under age 18 behind. The children receive support until age 18. The Disability part comes in when a wage earner becomes unable to work for a period which is expected to last at least one year or to end in death. As was noted above roughly one in five younger workers will need the disability coverage at least once in their lives. Some estimates say the cost of such insurance purchased on the open market would be $250,000 to $300,000 if you can get it. It is very difficult to get. Do not think that if you have disability insurance through your employer you are in the clear. Generally these long term disability insurers require you to apply for SS Disability after they have been paying you for a year or two. If you get the SS Disbility, then they will deduct the SS$ from the payment they make to you. If they were not able to transfer some of their costs to SS, their premiums would be much higher and thus their insurance much harder to get for the average worker. No one talks about this part of SS especially to younger workers, they just want to talk about having individual investment accounts. As if this is what is really going to happen. After all, the devil is in the details and we haven't seen those yet. There are several ideas out there to tweek SS which will not cost the moon and still save the program. It is clear that the Bush administration does not want to save anything for anyone except the big $ contributors who own their souls.