Social Security plan symbolizes entitlement failure

SSDI, a program intended to help disabled workers, has become a form of long-term unemployment insurance. The loser is the broader public good. Robert Samuelson deconstructs a good program gone bad. Maybe the famous quote should read “I have seen the future and nobody works.”

This post was last modified on January 26, 2021

Bonfire of the Absurdities: After 35 year career writing software for IBM mainframes, am now self-employed contractor thinking of joining a union and striking for higher wages. Cured morbid fear of heights when I learned to look at them as lengths standing on end. Uncompromising in refusal to accept browser cookies. Amateur investor who has accumulated a small fortune in the market after starting out years ago with a large one. For recreation, I run, hike, kayak and play tennis but will not consider synchronized swimming under any circumstances.

View Comments (42)

  • That's why I am happy here. I feel like I am discussing with live people with brains, not automotons giving me the party line.

      • Not particularly. Its all I can do to read an occasional post there. Or any other stupid, twisted posts from left wing radical sites.

    • Hey, if a person doesn't have a little bit of crazies, (otherwise known as original thoughts), why bother talking to them?

  • I've heard of Renal disease but never really knew what it meant. I just went and read about it on the Wikipedia. When people have problems with their kidneys, I just always sort of assumed diabetes was involved. Of course that's kind of simplistic of me. My uncle was on dialysis the last couple of years. Anyways, he started to fail last Good Friday and died on Easter Morning. I took that as a hopeful sign. Anyways, Rose, I'll try to remember to keep you in my regular prayers. There are many people who still want to be productive when they start having problems. But it's like the government wants you to be dependent upon them so they can keep and increase their power base.

    • The number one cause of kidney failure in the US is diabetes mellitus. The 2nd is high blood pressure, whcih can also be CAUSED by kidney disease (so the 2 issues kind of feed off each other.) And most with hypertension do not even know they have it, since it is symptom free until quite severe. I developed diabetes following my transplant, due to my anti rejection drugs. This kidney is failing (they don't last forever-usually 10-15 years.) I was told 10-12 because I had some complications early on. I had my transplant 81/2 years ago, so I'm on target to need another transplant in a couple more years. Thank you for your prayers. I HATE being on disability. I especially hate that now my kids are grown and I could use my money for more than just scraping by, I am back to scraping by. I made more money as a nurse's aide when I was in school. Still, I would be SCREWED if I didn't have disability, so I am thankful that I do. I always thought I was paying into SS and would never collect a penny from it. You never know how things will turn out!

    • No, no... Your entitlement is to the money being paid by the others when you no longer are paying for the entitlement of the earlier suckers of this grand ponzi. Bernie made-off with billions could ass plane it better than I, but I think you get the gist.

      • That is the main thing that bothers me. I am paying for others not myself, my money is not in a bank account with my name on it, it is not garnering interest of even being PROPERLY INVESTED and then returned to my own account. It is being spent, then when it is my turn to collect I am pretty much relying on people that are now yet to be born or are now small children or even young tweens. I am relying on them having jobs in order for me to collect the funds I put it in (UNWILLINGLY I MAY ADD). If they decide to be leeches or lazy as a big percentage I am screwed. Again, I am not recriminating the individual folks who are using their SS because all in all it is what it is, but SS needs to be reformed (or eliminated) and fast. Mind you, not touching those who already have their lives touched by it and/or those who are within 5-8 years of retirement. This is why we have to make alternate plans, but what bothers me is that I dont have that money that I unwillingly give to the government to help me make these alternate plans, so I have to dig into money that has also been taxed to make it happen. We are screwed going in and going out. It is a mess.

  • I'll be happy when one of you or your loved ones becomes disabled and unable to work. Hopefully like the supplemental oxygen I live off of (never smoked a day in my life, probably got it breathing YOUR second hand smoke!) I along with my disabled compatriots will have sucked the government teat dry and you can all rot in hell.

      • Whoever gave this steaming heap of stench the 2nd thumb up is a grand waste of air and should be docketed for euthanasia.

    • Geez PH, get a grip.
      Did you see anyone here condemning anyone that was actually deserving of SSDI?
      We don't begruge those genuinely in need, we just don't like the ones that use every program to scam a free existance off of the public.

      • Exactly right. Case in point would be the fat liberal who insists on living as a baby, with special furnishings and a paid provider.
        Government says he is intitled to spend taxpayer money to live his fetish based sick life.

    • I am on SSDI for End Stage Renal disease. I would love to return to work, but can no longer handle the physicality of my job as a nurse. I tried to get assistance in getting a Master's, which would have opened up some jobs in teaching and other desk type jobs, but I couldn't pay for it with my huge SSDI payment, and though I was offered job training, no one would pay for training in another field, nor for the Masters degree. I could have been off disability 8 years ago had that been the case. They have paid me more in disability than a Master's in ANYTHING would have cost. Now my transplanted kidney is failing, and I will be retirement age in 5 years, so the chance of me getting back to work are pretty much nil. So I am in the same boat you are, but I am thankful for the SSDI being available, and I hope it is available for others with legitimate problems for a long time to come.

      • I am sorry for your health issues. Although I wish that I could share your hope, I have no hope that SS will be available for me. At this point in time, the responsible thing for young people to do is to find their own way to get a safety net for ourselves. With all of that said I am thankful that the funds are there for you, you did after all paid into it and you are a legal citizen. I am just thinking that the future is bleak for a whole lot of us. As for this other person, their attitude is a problem.

    • Wow, go get counseling or something to work through those anger issues. Die gracefully without wasting the remainder of you life wrapped up in hatefull spite for your fellow man.

    • Excuse me? You would be happy for others to have a hard time in order for you to prove something to yourself? Are you really that petty, pathetic and evil? I can very easily say that you deserve your affliction due to the ugliness of your soul, however I won't say nor mean it, because that is not appropriate thing to say to a person especially one that I don't know. You coming in here and spreading such a venomous tripe is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. You don't know us and we are not responsible for YOUR afflictions. No one is, that is just the cards that were dealt to you. You have a choice to run with it with intelligence and love in your spirit, instead you chose to be dark and pathetic. The only one rotting in YOUR hell that you have chosen for yourself is you. No one here is responsible for your affliction and no one here should have to pay for it or be made responsible. You should be asking what are the roots of your problems and try to solve them, maybe say a dedicated set of prayers in earnest to a benevolent G-d and see if He deems to heal you and find good doctors. I pity you, that was pathetic.

      • He blames second hand smoke for his heart and lung failure. He knows what a bunch of chimneys we all are or at least were back in the day when he was hanging around us in the smoky bars. Or something equally oblovious. He is proud to think that he and his friends that are using the government programs to keep themselves alive will have run the well dry before our numbers are up, leaving all of us sorry putzes that hang out here at IHTM with no teat to suckle, as it were. I say good luck to him. He'll never be back, unless his sister re-logs him in.

    • Wow. Blame your parents for giving you the compromised genetics while your at it. While your enjoying the bottled gas you come up with the idea that we here are responsible for your misfortune? Take care, pal.

  • Know a guy who managed to get on SSDI for Addiction issues. I'm thinking yeah, he's addicted to being a lazy leach.

  • I am paying into this crap and I will never see that money. This is a scam and I amsick of paying into it. I could take that money or even less and do my own thing.

  • Hans Von Spakovsky wrote,
    "As an English conservative said, Obama will never realize that his kind of socialism is workable only in heaven, where it isn’t needed, and in hell, where they’ve already got it."

  • Many on this triple dip. They 1) get SSDI and 2) they go out and work for cash so there's no reported income, which naturally means 3) they don't pay taxes on their ill-gotten side job income either. Many probably also get 4) EBT cards, 5) Section 8 housing as they're income is too low and 6) medicare. This means they're dipping into the tax payer's till 6 times and paying little or nothing back.