freightdawg, Social Security is not the same as other kinds of taxes. With other taxes, the money goes to pay for things the government needs to do (or believes it needs to do), such as maintaining infrastructure, running the government, waging wars, etc. With Social Security it's more like large scale group insurance in the way it works. The difference, of course, being that you get money back rather than getting your medical bills paid, and you become eligible when you get old rather than when you become sick or injured.

And it's not a handout from the government either. You have to pay into the system in order to get any money out of it. And what you get out of it is relative to the amount you put into it.