Why Are Conservative Repubs Against Social Security?

[StevieSinatra]

I am pretty adamently liberal, however I have several conservative Facebook pages that I follow because I like to hear both sides. Anyways, on these pages there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people complaining about elderly collecting social security and how they are lazy and expect SS to be handed to them.

Um, excuse me, but my parents and my grandparents work(ed) hard all throughout their life. They deserve their SS check and benefits. It's not like welfare where the money is pretty much handed to them, it's money they worked hard for throughout their working lives and money that is owed to them. I don't get what the problem here is.

Do these conservatives not have older relatives? I mean my grandparents both worked for decades and my grandmother got sick and my grandfather returned to work long after retirement to help pay for her medical bills before finally retiring again. A lot of people are hardworking indivduals and that money is theirs by right.

Maybe a conservative could please (respectfully) inform me as to why they feel the way they do about this issue. Thank youl
On the Facebook pages I follow and in the comments on some Yahoo articles, there are hundreds of people calling them so. I did not personally, and it is the fact that they called them lazy that irks me the most. I am sorry, I didn't intend for that to sound like I was the one referring to them as so.

[civil_av8r]

I'm against the gov't raiding the coffers. The gov't is spending the Social Security money faster than they are taking it in. That is the problem with the system.

[Mark H]

Social Security is its own worst enemy.

It cannot be sustained, especially when the percentage of younger people abusing it keep[s getting higher as it has over the years.

The sad part is all my life I have been told I will never collect money from SS. I'm 46 and that assessment has been wrong all these years.

The truth is that SS and Medicare and now Obama care are going to build up so much debt that it will bankrupt the dollar. We are at 16 trillion now, and its going to keep going until no one will lend us any more money....at that point, they will turn on the printing presses and print dollars 24/7.

It is not that I will not get any money from SS, it is that the dollars I get will be worthless.

As it turns out, the age old adage is true and unchangeable.

"If you don't work you don't eat"

Social Security is going to prove that making us all suffer together.

Hope that helps.

[Andrew]

It's a wasteful system that is bogged down by bureaucracy. Why should the govt. have control over how I choose to invest my retirement money? This system will harm the young generation more than any other because the Fed. Govt. will not be able to pay it back.

Social Security at the end of it's time has historically given people back around 1.5 percent or so
S&P 500 Average and other stock market returns which could be invested in for retirement has historically returned around 5-6 percent.

That just shows how private sector investment is more efficient than forced government investment.


The sad reality is that the government has FORCED its citizens to be reliant on the horrible system, and so endorsing the taking of it away costs votes, especially from older people. This is why government should not give away free stuff because it creates unintended consequences.

[Sandy Kroger]

Because.......

If every American were allowed to keep there own money and invested it wisely the money at retirement would be enough to live comfortably and not have to answer to bureaucrats as to what Doctor they could see OR how much money they could use to live on OR trust that Congress the Senate or a sitting President would speed it.

[john]

They don't hate SS, they think it will be insolvent in 30 years or so. People in their 20s and 30s might not get it, even though they pay into it. Your parents and grandparents will still get SS, even if the republican plan is accepted. Only SS for young people is on on the chopping block.

[?]

I believe in volunteerism and I'm against statist force. If people want to collect SS they should pay into it but you should also have the option to not pay and not be able to collect.

[Sean]

seems to me as they have wealthy grandparents who don't need their SS to live off of so all that money is being wasted on the poor old people who are going to die anyways. They stick their hands into the coockie jar of hardworking americans when they already have their own. a better question would be how long are we going to let corrupt people run our lives and steal from us anytime they like before we say no more and take it all back

[tehabwa]

For the same reason they have ALWAYS been against it -- it saves lives and prevents suffering.

You're right -- people pay into it while they work, and so DESERVE it when they retire. Also, realize, it doesn't add ONE PENNY to the debt.

The idiots you read are just morons, repeating lies they've been told. The Republican leaders have always hated Social Security, and tried to prevent it, and have tried to end it, for many decades now.

They are inhuman, brainless, heartless brutes. Period.

[Steven]

As I know that you know, there are republicans of all colors and they don't always (maybe rarely) think the same way.
The issue of continued support for Social Security is, should be, based on its expense. No doubt those who receive SS benefits have earned them. After all, it's their own money (deducted from their paychecks every payday for years and years) that is simply being returned to them after the gov't has used the contributions for a number of unrelated (read illegal) purposes. I'm drawing my SS benefits now.
The heart of many republicans's arguments is that privatizing retirement funds will increase return to workers while eliminating the gov't's expensive and inefficient administration. After all, they, the well-to-do and wealthy depend not on government retirement, but on gains from investment in the private market. Why can't the rest of us? Not too different from Marie Antoinette's response to information that the masses were starving by saying "Let them eat cake". She really had no idea that cake wasn't available to everyone.
Let's all acknowledge that our social/economic classes don't mingle and therefore have no way of developing empathy for others. But that's why we have a central government theoretically comprised of senators and congressmen elected to represent our states' and individual needs and concerns, right? Yeah, me too.
I think that Dem's/liberals are so much more open and honest about their issues than Rep's/conservatives because they have so much more to lose, and feel a level of desperation that conservatives do not understand.