I realize we live in an age that glorifies ignorance and we're supposed to believe black is white if that's what the pundits tell us, but sometimes when people refuse to look around them, I just want to puke.
Several of those nausea-inducing points are related to Social Security, and one of the most common is the whine that "I don't expect Social Security to be around for me."
Well, darlin', you don't even need to look as far ahead as your own retirement. Most of us have parents or some other significant person from another generation.
You might try connecting with reality: Social Security either does or will take care of those significant elders so you don't have to foot the bills for them when they can no longer work.
How is that not worth chipping in every week? Think about what a difference it would make in your lifestyle if you had to be completely responsible for supporting one or more elderly people, and maybe reality will sink in.
Not only that, but the only reason Social Security is jeopardized over the long run is the idiotic economic stance of the fright-wingers.
People only pay Social Security taxes on the first $117,000 of income. That cap probably made sense back when it was established. But in 2014, according to figures cited by Jenny Brown at Labor Notes, it means that somebody making $500,000 a year pays Social Security taxes at a rate of 1/4 the rate an average working stiff pays.
Alan Pyke at ThinkProgress calculated it: "That cap means that the 900 richest people in the country stopped paying into the program after the first two days of 2014."
Reality bites!
What's rational about refusing to raise the cap to something that reflects the real world? Voila! A big chunk of Social Security's future solvency problems would be solved in one stroke! In fact, Pyke wrote that raising the cap would probably take care of the next 75 years.
Raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour or more? Voila! Billions more per year flowing into Social Security -- all solvency problems evaporate.
Those who would have to pay more in Social Security withholding would be saved from paying more taxes to house and feed the elderly -- unless, of course, their plan is to eliminate that "problem" via starvation.
The wingnuts, of course, don't want you focused on such facts -- they're gleefully promoting warfare between the young and old over Social Security.
And the GOP idea of privatizing Social Security? Nothing but a way for the financial vultures to siphon off billions in fees from your retirement money ... exactly what Social Security was designed to avoid in the first place.
No matter what your age, Social Security -- modernized, not privatized -- is almost certainly to your advantage.
You need to try getting that through your congresscritter's thick skull.