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From: shad@teldata.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Retirement and "Social Welfare"
Message-ID: <514@teldata.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Nov-85 16:07:45 EST
Article-I.D.: teldata.514
Posted: Wed Nov 13 16:07:45 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Nov-85 21:12:04 EST
References: <432@drutx.UUCP> <358@whuts.UUCP>
Reply-To: shad@teldata.UUCP (Warren Shadwick)
Organization: Teltone Corp., Kirkland, WA
Lines: 42

In article <358@whuts.UUCP> orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER) writes:
>  
> ...
>   Social Security is *not* social welfare nor
> is it targetted for the poor - it is a government sponsored pension
> plan which requires  a minimum amount of work-time paid into the
> system before anyone is eligible.  People have paid into the
> Social Security system for their whole working lives.
> TO get a pension from this fund is *not* social welfare!


Whether intentional or not Sevener is simply spouting propoganda
that the Social Security Administration has been telling us for
years. But what he (and the S.S.A.) says is not so.  To find out
exactly what S.S. is or is not there is no better source than the 
U.S. Supreme Court.

The following are eye-opening excerpts from a case before the U. S.
Supreme Court.  In this case the Court was trying to find a way to 
approve of denying Social Security to a "commie".

"The Social Security System is a form of social insurance, enacted
pursuant to Congress' power to spend money in aid of the general
welfare, whereby persons gainfully employed, and those who employ
them, are taxed to permit the payment of benefits to the retired
and disabled, and their dependents.

"The noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Social
Security Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of
an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual 
premium payments.

"To engraft upon the 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."

                                   Flemming v. Nestor, 363 US 603.

-- 

Warren N. Shadwick
... ihnp4!uw-beaver!tikal!shad