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Re:Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession by archgoon on Saturday May 04, 2019 @06:13PM (#19829722)
The parent (akvadrako) is correct.

For 2017 the budgets were:

Social Security was $939 billion.

Medicare was $591 billion.

Medicaid was $353 billion.

The defense budget was $590 billion.

So Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security together are about 3 times larger than the Defense budget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_Sta...

Re:Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession by rayiner on Saturday May 04, 2019 @07:21PM (#19830008)
And that’s not counting the more than $3 trillion spent by state and local governments, which are all for social services and infrastructure.
Re:Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession by aey on Saturday May 04, 2019 @06:44PM (#19829857)
That is a bit misleading. Social security is distributed back to everyone. Although higher income earners pay more than what they get out.

https://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/benefits-compare-e...

Re:Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession by jandrewrogers on Saturday May 04, 2019 @07:22PM (#19830014)
Paying Social Security taxes does not entitle anyone to receive future benefit. Per the US Supreme Court (1960), Social Security taxes are no different than any other income tax. This is not a theoretical distinction, as the US can and has denied Social Security benefits to Americans that have paid Social Security taxes for arbitrary reasons. The Supreme Court ruling was based on one such case.
Re:Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession by aey on Saturday May 04, 2019 @10:32PM (#19830743)
What percentage of the 900 billion per year has been denied?
Re:Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession by akvadrako on Sunday May 05, 2019 @06:07AM (#19832038)
Why does that matter? It functions just like a regressive tax and social program. It still contributes to the deficit and is money the government needs to take out of the economy.
Re:Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession by aey on Sunday May 05, 2019 @06:36PM (#19835515)
It’s money redistributed between consumers (progressively). Presumably the consumers will spend it on things they need, and capitalists will try to squeeze out a profit.

Unlike bullets and bombs, which is money burned.

And unlike Medicaid, which is money taken from consumers and spend specially on medical services. Which consumers may or may not need. Hence all the insurance fraud.