Is anything left of due process in our country?

[HeyYou]

The reason Reagan went after Social Security so rabidly (as does, to this very day, the same machine that supported him) is because it's an entitlement and is not tied to tax collection. Reagan lobbied heavily to not even have COLA adjustments, which would have certainly relegated the benefits to pointlessness etc. But fortunately the American people contribute separately into SS via FICA contributions. Being disabled you'd be one of the relative few who, at least as long as the American people decide to continue enforcing our Constitution, continue receiving federal paychecks, because legally there is no justification to stop paying them as long as FICA contributions are made. Also it's why that last item was included in my list of valid functions for federal government. It's one of a very few imo.

The repubbies like to see it as an 'entitlement', but, that isn't really the case. It's 'insurance'.... I paid into it for many decades, before I started collecting on it. And I didn't really want to. I would MUCH rather be able to work.... but, that doesn't seem to be in the cards. So, if I want a warm place to sleep at night, and a roof over my head, this is what I gotta do.

 

Reagan just wanted the money to give to the military...... SS has been raided so many times, I am surprised the checks still cash. :)

[TheMastersSon]

SS qualifies as both an insurance and entitlement program. An entitlement program such as SS means recipients are legally entitled to benefits, separate from and regardless of our government's taxes. Again there's no guarantee that new leadership under a new federal government would respect previous constitutional law, but personally I can't imagine the American people, our state reps and courts etc allowing our poorest and sickest millions to simply starve to death in our streets. Ain't gonna happen, and there would be no legal justification for it to happen if FICA contributions continue. Edited October 20, 2017 by TheMastersSon

[HeyYou]

SS qualifies as both an insurance and entitlement program. An entitlement program such as SS means recipients are legally entitled to benefits, separate from and regardless of our government's taxes. Again there's no guarantee that new leadership under a new federal government would respect previous constitutional law, but personally I can't imagine the American people, our state reps and courts etc allowing our poorest and sickest millions to simply starve to death in our streets. Ain't gonna happen, and there would be no legal justification for it to happen if FICA contributions continue.

Welfare is an entitlement. You are mixing terms there. While technically correct, by the definitions our government uses..... SS doesn't fit as an entitlement. But, once again, that's just semantics.

 

If our government privatizes SS though.... it becomes a whole different ball game. Not one I want to play, so, I resist that idea with every fiber of my being, for exactly those reasons. Some faceless corporation would happily cut folks off, if it meant the upper management got bigger bonuses......

[TheMastersSon]

The more handles that are pulled for R's in election booths, the more likely SS privatization becomes. And you're correct, the plan is and always has been just one more angle to try and destroy the program. If it had been privatized the last time it was formally proposed, the program would already be belly up. The major portion of the SS trust fund would have evaporated along with the (at least) $30 trillion that's been lost in our private sector since Nixon.

 

At this point SS is one of the last remaining differences in available federal benefits between our country and most others, this is why it's been targeted by the multinationals so hard and for so long. The same set of smoke and mirrors was used to "reform" our welfare system, well they "reformed" it and we've had the largest budget deficits in U.S. history ever since.