How to Counter Socialists about Social Security
By Edward Hudgins

March 16, 2016 -- Five years ago at the hospital, the joy of holding my newborn daughters in my arms was momentarily disrupted when I was asked to free up a hand to fill out the forms for their Social Security cards.

This memory came flooding back when I encountered a leftist social media meme picturing a Social Security card that reads “Do you have one of these? Congratulations! You’re a card-carrying socialist!” Another meme reads “If you don’t like socialism then take a stand. Reject your Social Security benefits. Reject your Medicaid and Medicare when you get sick.”

You might think these are propagated by trolls trying to make leftists look like real dimwits. But given that so many young people, most no doubt victims of government schooling, support Bernie Sanders, we know this scary-stupid is for real. So how to push back?

First, you don’t opt into Social Security or these other government “social insurance” programs. You’re literally born into them. To be employed legally and to do much else, you need this government ID number.

Second, the government takes money out of your paycheck against your will for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Unemployment Compensation. It’s coercive: you have no choice. If you don’t let the government take your money, it will come after you with guns to get it.

Third, if there were no social security, the vast majority of workers would see their pay rise around 15%, because the wage taxes employers pay to Social Security come off worker's pay in the end, too. If the worker took that money and invested it over a 40-year working lifetime, the market returns, if they followed historical patterns, would provide at least as good benefits as social security does, and in many if not most cases a lot better.

Fourth, there is no money in the Social Security trust fund... (Continue reading here.)