I am also an advocate of social programs to help the needy, but when my millionare neighbors all laugh at their SS checks while they are golfing and gulping down anti depressents and driving around in their "jazzys" all on my tax dollar, I take offense.
I'll be your huckleberry, Greg.
It seems to me that your problem is not really with poor people wanting something for nothing, it's rich people who ARE getting something for nothing. Which, I agree, is offensive.
People who are collecting SS (retirement) now will draw more out of the system than they've ever paid into it. They spent their working lives during the most peaceful, profitable time in this country's history, they've had more technological and health advancements than in all other generations combined and did they use all of that to save for their future and provide for their children? Hell, no. They went on cruises and bought fancy houses and now they want to whine about having to choose between buying medicine and buying food. Well, grampa, maybe if you hadn't bought a new car every two years and you'd skipped on that cosmetic surgery (but, hey, you don't look a DAY over 57!) and saved your money, you wouldn't be facing the food vs. meds decision now.
I agree the answer is to means test. And means test TODAY, not twenty years from now. But we also need to eliminate the income ceiling for FICA/Medicare contributions. We need that money to keep the system going. Also, for debt service on W's most excellent idea of having an entire country basically live off (and finance a war on) its credit cards. Oh, and pyramid schemes.
If Social Security doesn't keep going, none of us is going to get a damn thing, never mind about proportionate benefits. When you eliminate medical benefits for anyone, much less several million medically needy people, it causes the overall cost of health care to go up. Which raises insurance premiums for individuals and, yes, small businesses.
If this country can't service its debt and we become more banana republic than we already are, your property values are going to go down, inflation will go up and so will crime. Creating a Dickensian underworld of disenfranchised people is NOT going to help your business unless, of course, your business is prisons or personal protection. Supply-side economics has run its course.
While we're at it, we might as well put some of these old people back to work. They're healthier than they've ever been, they're going to live about forever, they seem to have all kinds of time to lobby the government for more benefits, let's give 'em jobs. Have them do all the low-paying, no-risk-taking, PETTY things the rest of us are doing for chump change. Like taking care of you when you're sick. Or educating your kids. Or cleaning your house, checking your groceries, keeping your local water system working, servicing the airplane you're getting on. Then we'll all have time to make REAL money.
If you don't like the word "tax," think of it as a "convenience fee."