Ponder This! WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO?

Think about all that money you set aside during your work life for Medicare and Social Security. After you and your spouse die it doesn't pass down to your children or other beneficiary like it would if you had a private retirement account. Where did it go?

Not only did you contribute to Social Security, but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!

If you bought an annuity, and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had. This isn't Entitlement! We paid cash for our social security insurance! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make or benefits some kind of charity or handout.

Congressional benefits ---- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call our social security retirement entitlements?  We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless?

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey and now Pakistan ......home of bin Laden.  Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income', receive no aid, nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries, yet we have children hungry in America today?
 
They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it's time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.

(THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THIS CALCULATION IS THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY COLLECTED THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY.)

Remember THAT in November 2012! Forget party politics. Send them ALL packing. And, the first action taken after election should be to bann lobbyists from Washington D.C. and State Capitol Buildings.

Just my opinion... but it would be the beginning of 'the answer'.