Your Opinion: Social Security misunderstood

Dear Editor:

Mr. Smith, you still deny that Social Security is an integration transfer of money. Money that is taken from the employee and employers today is given to the current retired, the survivors, and the disabled. Any excess of your money is placed in the trust fund. This is not a Democrat or Republican statement. You will find this description on the Social Security website SSA Publication No. 05-10024. This publication goes into great detail about how Social Security works.

Many have the misunderstanding that the money they put into Social Security is their money. The Supreme Court has established that no one has any legal right to Social Security benefits. The courts decided in Felmming v. Nestor (1960) that "entitlement to Social Security benefits is not a contractual right." In my reading of this issue it means you don't own the money.

If you place your money in a bank or financial institution that money is yours. You have the right to all the interest, capital gain and dividend. You have control over when you take it our and how you put it in. In the event of your death your hears are entitled to your property. You own the money.

You and your employer deposit money into Social Security of which most pays current recipients and what is left over goes to the trust fund. The method that is used by Treasury to collect the money is called a FICA tax. When money is taken by means of a tax you lose ownership of the money. After paying into the system for 45 years in the event of your death, if before age 62 with children over the age of 18 and no surviving spouse your family will receive $255. You don't own the money. You have traded the money for a promise that when you retire you will be paid until death. That promise has been kept since 1940. The question is with high deficits and spending can that promise continue to be kept. We still have time to repair the damage so it will.

The Social Security Trust Fund has IOU's. When we had to take money out of the fund this year to pay current recipients it was not done by taxes taken in by the government we increase the debt limit.

In my perspective it is like me asking my credit card company for a credit limit increase so I can pay my bills.