Well, Hubby, let me put it another way. I paid into the Social Security system during my whole working life, including when I was self-employed (Schedule C, paid the whole FICA tax myself, that sort of thing). I knew what it was for, and I didn't begrudge it. For periods of time, my income was so low that, had this not been legally required of me, I doubt very seriously that I would have done it voluntarily. I know I'm far from unique in that. I sure could have used the money. But even with my occasionally minuscule income, paying it didn't kill me. Besides, when I was employed by others, it was withheld from my paycheck and I never saw it, didn't miss it. No sweat.

It was like paying a nominal insurance premium. It insured me against penury in my old age. Now, since I paid for it, you're damned right I expect my monthly check from Social Security. (Far from bitching at the casino manager, I'm getting back what I paid for, and if someone is getting a larger benefit because they paid in more, that's strikes me as equitable, and it's not my concern.) The propaganda was always that what I paid in month by month was being put in a special account for me. Now it turns out that the government doesn't do it that way. My money was not being set aside for me, it was being used for whatever the administration du jour wanted to piss it away for, and now they have to pay me what they own me with money that is coming in currently. That's not my fault. If they had invested it in treasury bonds as most people thought they were, things would be smoothly solvent. That's lousy management and general hanky-panky on the government's part.

This is not an "entitlement." It is something I paid for, and now I am quite contentedly reaping the benefits.

Your position seems to be a mixture of Ayn Rand and Social Darwinism, with a liberal (excuse the expression!) sprinkling of Calvinism:   if someone is poor, no matter how they fell into that condition, they are lazy and stupid (Ayn Rand), it is because God has determined that they deserve to be poor (Calvin), and it's better for society and the species as a whole not to help them, but to let them die off and thereby remove their flawed genes from the gene pool (Social Darwinism).

It has been said that a society is judged by how it treats its weakest members.

Don Firth