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Walter E. Williams |
Some of the responses to my column last week, titled "Immoral Beyond Redemption," prove that Americans have been hoodwinked by Congress. Some readers protested my counting Social Security among government handout programs that can be described as Congress' taking what belongs to one American and giving to another, to whom it doesn't belong -- legalized theft. They argued that they worked for 45 years and paid into Social Security and that the money they now receive is theirs. These people have been duped and shouldn't be held totally accountable for such a belief. Let's look at it.
The Social Security pamphlet of 1936 read, "Beginning November 24,
1936, the United States Government will set up a Social Security account
for you. ... The checks will come to you as a right." (http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssb36.html).
Americans were led to believe that Social Security was like a
retirement account and that money placed in it was, in fact, their
property. Shortly after the Social Security Act's passage, it was
challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, in Helvering v. Davis (1937). The
court held that Social Security was not an insurance program, saying,
"The proceeds of both employee and employer taxes are to be paid into
the Treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not
earmarked in any way." In a 1960 case, Flemming v. Nestor, the Supreme
Court said, "To engraft upon Social Security system a concept of
'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and
boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands."
Decades after Americans were duped into thinking that the money taken
from them was theirs, the Social Security Administration belatedly and
quietly tried to clean up its history of deception. Its website (http://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html)
explains, "Entitlement to Social Security benefits is not (a)
contractual right." It adds: "There has been a temptation throughout the
program's history for some people to suppose that their FICA payroll
taxes entitle them to a benefit in a legal, contractual sense. ...
Congress clearly had no such limitation in mind when crafting the law."
The Social Security Administration's explanation fails to mention that
it was the SSA itself that created the lie that "the checks will come to
you as a right."
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