The basic premise of Social Security is that the Government feels many people are not smart enough to save money for retirement themselves, so "Big Brother" is going to do it for you. It would be nice if those of us who are able to save could opt out, but if opting out was an option then inevitably, many of the people unable to save would opt out to - thus creating yet another group of people that would be the burden of tax payers when they hit retirement.
So in theory Social Security is a good idea. You should be given a choice of several low risk options to invest your money in, this money would then be invested for you in the way you specify and at retirement all of the assets that were paid in, and all of the interest that was earned would be turned back over to you. Over the course of 30 to 40 working years, putting money in and earning interest - you would have a substantial lump sum of cash to use as you see fit.
Unfortunatley, this is not how it works and here is the scam, Social Security is not the helpful "Big Brother" program that it is said to be. After you retire you will be given a monthly "allowance", the amount of your allownace is decided by the Government. Even though you have loaned this money to the government for up to 40 years they will not pay you a dime of interest! Even if they did, it wouldnt matter anyway, because you will more likely than not, be dead before you even recieve the total amount of cash you paid in. In other words this is just another way for the government to steal your money while claiming to be looking out for you.
When someone brings up an idea like or similiar to what I typed in the second paragraph of this post, They are attacked as being an "evil conservative trying to take away your Social Security and kill you". But why would someone be against an idea that puts so much more money in the hands of our retired citizens? Well first and most obviously because it would take money out of the hands of the Government and we all know money is power. Another reason is that if things were done my way every retiree would be wealthy enough to be independant, which means "not dependant" and more exactly, not dependant on Government - and the more people dependant on Government, the more power the Government has and people dependant on Government are more likely to look the other way when there is courruption, etc.
