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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (209622)	11/27/2012 2:35:42 PM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543994

Payroll or FICA contributions are given in return for Social Security and Medicare benefits. Therefore, they are not taxes. They are pension/medical deductions, which the contributor gets back more or less in full when they retire. If the contributor is low income, they get back much more than they contributed, so for them they are even less "tax" like. Sure, politicians have used the SS Trust Fund as a slush fund to cover general budget expenses, but that does not negate the fact that it disburses benefits according to a set formula, based on the amount of total contributions, as if it were a real pension fund. From the point of view of the contributors into the fund, it is a pension fund. And for low income households, a very generous one.