Social Security & Medicare should be for retirees. I, for one, am getting a little perturbed at the insinuation that Social Security and Medicare recipients are leeches on the government dole and are responsible for the massive debt of the federal government. It simply is not true. Presidents and Congress are responsible for the inexcusable financial problems we the people face.

The Social Security Trust Fund has a $2.6 trillion surplus due it. It is not there, of course, but it is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. Therein lies the problem going forward with our brilliant politicians in Washington already borrowing 40 cents of every dollar spent. Apparently, the reason most presidents and congressional people became politicians is because they failed math and economics 101.

I am fed up with Democrats saying Social Security and Medicare are popular programs everyone loves. We of the age of retirement have no choice, but to like them. By mandatory requirements, we paid what was required during our working lifetime for the coverage government pledged. Since the Johnson administration, government has spent the money faster than it was collected, but there was no way out of the mandated programs. We are simply the victims of an irresponsible government, which favored keeping their plush powerful jobs to being forthright and fiscally responsible to the public.

As far as Medicare, I had much rather be on my former employer’s health insurance plan than Medicare. Medicare is nowhere near as good as the plan I had while working. The premiums for Medicare coverage are deducted from your meager Social Security checks, and in addition to the monthly premiums, there are deductibles and co-pays on everything.

Thanks to past and present presidents and Congress, the trust funds initially established to protect taxpayers’ contributions have been raided and the money spent on frivolous causes. Architects of that work of genius was LBJ and the Democrats in the 60s. In addition to being reckless with taxpayer money, more and more people who contributed very little, if anything, to the fund have been added to the roles at earlier ages than retirement.

Only 64 percent of Social Security recipients are retired workers.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have become giant social welfare programs fraught with fraud and abuse that are unsustainable as presently administered. Social Security and Medicare are paid for benefits, not handouts, for those who worked and paid all their lives into the programs. Message to the President and Congress, don’t look to old folks to pay for your excesses. Cheers.