IS SOCIAL SECURITY AN "ENTITLEMENT"?
From today's email mailbag -

"Entitlement???" What the hell is wrong here?

Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only 30K over your working life, that’s close to $220,500. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working (me) you'd have $892,919.98.If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years, and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month. The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever had.

Entitlement my ass, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!! Congressional benefits, aka. free health care, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare. And they have the nerve to call my retirement entitlements !!!!!!.....scroll down..............

Emergency Rooms for their general health care at just one hospital the taxpayer cost totaled over $25 million a year!!!

Someone please tell me what the HELL's wrong with all the people that run this country!!!!!!

We're "broke" & can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, the Homeless, families who've lost their homes because of Wall Street banks who pulled a fast one or who've lost their jobs because of corporate "outsourcing", etc., etc.,???????????

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey. And now Pakistan - the home of bin Laden and inept border security. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income'receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'S and Tons of Food into Foreign Countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement, even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when its time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? For "bridges to nowhere" and pet projects at home to buy votes?

We have hundreds of adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of foreign orphans.

AMERICA: a country where we have homeless citizens without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without 'needed' meds, and mentally ill without treatment -etc., etc.

YET......................

They have a 'Benefit' for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations, ships and
planes lining up with food, water, tents, clothes, bedding, doctors and medical
supplies.

Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.

SAD? YEAH. OK, SO WHEN DO WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?????

A suggestion: Make a copy of this. Print it out. And mail it to your U.S. Senators and Congressmen & women. Write a personal note at the bottom and tell them to do the job WE sent them to do and are paying them to do. Watch who responds. Who gets the job done. Those who don't? Vote them out ASAP