Here is a letter that appeared in yesterday's Akron Beacon Journal and is worth a read. Please keep in mind that the 'government promises' below are promises each of us has made to each other through our elected representatives...we call that the social contract.
"I am the wife of a career Army member. My husband was in the service of the United States from the age of 17. He served a tour in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. Each time he re-enlisted, he was promised a retirement if he stayed 20 years or more and health care for life. When we married, he had already been in the Army for many years. I had been working since I was 18.
I was promised by our government that I would have Social Security and Medicare, and they deducted it from my paycheck every time I got paid. While my husband was in the service, we were moved at least every three years, from one base to another, but I was in limbo until the Army cut orders for me to join my husband.
I was a bookkeeper, so it was fairly easy to get a job wherever we were, but I never was able to get paid much because I was never there long enough. Whoever hired me knew that I wouldn’t be around long. I want the politicians to stop saying I am getting entitlements. We worked all our lives to get what we are drawing every month.
We paid into Social Security and Medicare, and we are just getting what our government promised us. We gave up the normal life that others take for granted by staying in the military so we could draw the retirement we draw now. Every dime we get now was hard-earned. It’s not a handout. I am sick of some people thinking we are moochers."
Thank you Elizabeth McCulley of Stow. Millions of workers have sat across the table with employers or government representatives for generations, negotiating away salary (their own property) in exchange for retirement benefits. When these pension funds are squandered by public or private sector elites, it usually includes renaming these funds to avoid the uncomfortable truth that the squandering is best understood as stealing and betrayal of trust.
I was promised by our government that I would have Social Security and Medicare, and they deducted it from my paycheck every time I got paid. While my husband was in the service, we were moved at least every three years, from one base to another, but I was in limbo until the Army cut orders for me to join my husband.
I was a bookkeeper, so it was fairly easy to get a job wherever we were, but I never was able to get paid much because I was never there long enough. Whoever hired me knew that I wouldn’t be around long. I want the politicians to stop saying I am getting entitlements. We worked all our lives to get what we are drawing every month.
We paid into Social Security and Medicare, and we are just getting what our government promised us. We gave up the normal life that others take for granted by staying in the military so we could draw the retirement we draw now. Every dime we get now was hard-earned. It’s not a handout. I am sick of some people thinking we are moochers."
Thank you Elizabeth McCulley of Stow. Millions of workers have sat across the table with employers or government representatives for generations, negotiating away salary (their own property) in exchange for retirement benefits. When these pension funds are squandered by public or private sector elites, it usually includes renaming these funds to avoid the uncomfortable truth that the squandering is best understood as stealing and betrayal of trust.
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