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Comment by kasey_junk | Hacker News Reader

I know this is sort of nitpicking but social security is not some sort of government sponsored savings account.

It’s a social welfare program like any other. So if politicians are “stealing” social security money, it’s not yours, it’s the beneficiaries. Similar to if they were stealing food stamps.

Like all social welfare programs it can be amended, changed, done away with, etc and it’s not “taking your money”. That money was gone when the taxes were paid.

If you want social security to be an existent and viable social welfare program when it’s time for you to receive it, vote for parties and politicians working to make that happen and punish those that don’t.

Or conversely if you don’t want that welfare program to exist vote that way.

But don’t treat social security as some bank account you’ve paid into, it’s not that.

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> But don’t treat social security as some bank account you’ve paid into, it’s not that.

It's not that, and it cannot ever be. Any government that "saves" dollars in a social security account is lying to themselves and their citizens.

At a national level, dollars are a way of measuring the pie, they aren't the pie itself. A government can't put a trillion dollars into a savings account one year and then take it out a decade later. If they pretend to do that all they are doing is destroying a trillion dollars today and then creating it again a decade later, causing massive inflation and deflation.

A government can only save tangible items. If they spent a trillion dollars on building retirement homes and training nurses, then those will be available for purchase by private or public dollars in the future. Anybody looking at the book and saying "there's a trillion dollar deficit, we're stealing from the future" would have it completely backwards.

"Anybody looking at the book and saying "there's a trillion dollar deficit, we're stealing from the future" would have it completely backwards. "

Isn't that only true if the government is spending that money in a way that creates wealth down the line? I think that is a very debatable notion. Not only is the government not creating that army of doctors and nurses, it's allowed the creation of a system where only a limited amount of doctors and nurses can be made privately. They are not good stewards of the money looking out for your grandkids best interest.

> Isn't that only true if the government is spending that money in a way that creates wealth down the line?

Yes exactly. Which is why the amount of the deficit isn't particularly relevant, it's how it's spent. For example, giving everybody COVID relief cheques makes inflation worse, but spending on green infrastructure lowers inflation in the long term.

> But don’t treat social security as some bank account you’ve paid into, it’s not that.

Maybe that's true, but "it's not welfare, it's your money, your benefit is proportional to your investment, etc" has been the marketing since inception. It's certainly what I was taught in high school civics.

> Or conversely if you don’t want that welfare program to exist vote that way.

This doesn’t work with open boarders where those who get in will eventually be allowed to vote, the US has had amnesties before. A case of the government choosing their constituents rather than the other way around.

Most people that I know my age (millennials) pretty much assume SS will have run out by the time they need it. I can only imagine gen Z would be expecting social overhaul sometime during their working careers.

This is a pretty strange claim to make from a country that's made up of immigrants (well, colonists) and that hasn't had open borders for a century.

The US is mostly made of up people who were born in the US. Of course, everyone in the US (including Native Americans) have ancestors who moved here from elsewhere, but that's true everywhere (even within Africa where humans originated, there's tons of movement). Moreover, none of this is relevant as the US government is responsible to its citizens, full stop.

I would be pro open boarders if there was no welfare state. You can’t have both and expect it to last.

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