I don't think anyone has made them an entitlement. It is the choice of a government to redistribute wealth, that's basically what a government does.
It may be more overt if it simply gives the money to other people, rather than paying them for some service, or position, or product etc: but in any case it's still redistributing a portion of your wealth, in ways that it chooses. And whether or not it gets anything back is not germane to this point - you have paid the taxes regardless.
Also I don't really see a difference if you have paid to a scheme in the past - well, I do, obviously, but not at the point of payment: at that point you're receiving redistributed wealth, you may or may not have paid as much as you receive, and your payout continues.
Although the details may be different in the US (e.g. I don't quite follow if there is actually a discrete separate fund of Social Security moneys, or if this is a shorthand way of referring to a PAYG scheme and its current cost) over here the tax moneys are basically fungible. We have a state pension scheme which works this way, and the National Insurance surcharge (now effectively a payroll tax paid by employee and employer) was this kind of thing.
Now if you think that taxes on income are too high (or too low), that seems to me a separate argument altogether.
And pretty well every government seems surprisingly confident that its spending - its redistribution, spread and degree - is in the interests of the majority of people... Personally I feel the only one in the world which has it about right is Norway. |
