We keep hearing the negative definition of Social Security benefits as entitlements. Well, they absolutely are an entitlement! I paid premiums matched by my employers, for about 47 years. Those premiums were no different than premiums paid for any other kind of insurance. When you die, someone is entitled to the promised pay out. When you wreck your vehicle, you are entitled to compensation for damages sustained. When I reached 65 years of age, I was entitled to receive the benefits promised, that I and my employer had purchased with our premiums.

Private insurance companies are required to hold, in hand, a certain percentage of their possible claims liabilities and then they invest the surplus funds, until needed. Banks are supposed to do the same thing. However, evidence shows that deregulation, incompetence of management, and just plain greed has put the small investors (CDs and savings account holders) and the borrowers in danger of not being able to recover their investments or operate through to the finish of the terms of their loan. By the way, borrowers aren’t the cause of all the problems in the banking world!

Surely, I must question the brilliance of those bureaucrats and politicians who have cut 1/3 of the funding of Social Security, and claim it as economic stimulus. The fund is purported to be nearly bankrupt, so let’s cut contributions to hasten its demise. When we no longer have benefits being paid out to retirees, do you think they will spend more money for essential every day needs? Do you think the business world will increase production and services for those people who have no money to spend?

All this baloney about Social Security being a major drain on the national budget is hog wash. The facts are that borrowing (or stealing, as it appears) from the Social Security Trust Fund has deferred the inevitable raising of income tax or fees to fund our national budget.

Medicare and medicaid are a different game. Medicare is funded at 75% by public taxes and medicaid (I think?) is totally funded by public taxes. If you want to see people suffering health and economic problems that result in dying on the streets, then let’s just callously cut all that funding and join the 3rd world countries, where that is common. The majority of those people living on the streets (homeless) are there due to health and mental problems. We talk about honoring our veterans. A high percentage of the homeless are veterans. We can’t afford to look after their needs? No, not when we have to exclude our military budget from the austerity of the recession; not when we have to reduce the taxes of the most wealthy of our nation; not when we have to perpetuate the ‘me first’ attitude and greed in our society.

We claim to be a Christian nation. Where are those compassionate Christians, who consider themselves the moral majority? Are they in danger of hearing those dreaded words, at the final judgment? “Depart from me for I never knew you. Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.”