this is what they don’t want their taxes paying for. This is what Project 2025 and the Trump administration say need to be cut, and what individual responsibility and empowerment should take care of.
These are some of the programs many Americans say are used by lazy loafers who don’t want to work.
And, no, nobody pays for their own Social Security and Medicare benefits – Both are a collective risk using an insurance concept.
Americas social safety net
Social Security – Retirement, disability, and survivor benefits – 74 million beneficiaries
Medicare – Health insurance for seniors and certain disabled people – 69 million
Medicaid – Health coverage for low-income individuals – 79 million
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – Food assistance – 42 million
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) – Cash assistance for eligible families – 1 million
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) – Income support for elderly or disabled people with limited income – 7.4 million
Unemployment Insurance -.Temporary income after job loss – 1-3 million typically
Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Health insurance for children – 7.2 million
Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program – Rental assistance – 2.3 million households
National School Lunch Program – Free or reduced-price school meals – 30 million
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) – Nutrition support for mothers and young children – 6.6 million
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) – Tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers – 60 million
Public Housing Program – Affordable government-supported housing – 1.7 million
Pell Grant – College grants for eligible students – 6.7 million
Head Start – Early childhood education – 1 million
Child Tax Credit (CTC) – 48 million
Safety net programs (excluding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid): account for about 11% of the federal budget.
The two tax credits are about 2.8% of the federal budget.
I suspect that not many of us would like to change our lifestyle so we can avoid work and instead live the life of most of the Americans using these programs. Even now millions of seniors claim Social Security and Medicare are insufficient and want more.
Those Americans who say they “ worked their entire life, paid their own way, paid their fair share, their dues” probably did not start in poverty or experience some significant hardships, and may have received a good education and had the ability and encouragement to use it.
Oh yeah, what about fraud? Not a significant percentage of payments and not to be confused with payment errors.
By dollar amount, provider and organizational fraud often accounts for much larger financial losses than individual beneficiary fraud, particularly in healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare, where false billing schemes can involve millions of dollars.
For programs such as SNAP (food assistance), fraud by recipients does occur, but studies and government oversight generally find that:
- Most recipients comply with program rules.
- Payment errors (which include both agency and recipient mistakes) are more common than intentional fraud.
- Intentional trafficking of SNAP benefits represents only a small fraction of total benefits issued.
Some abuse will be part of any program, like Americans who underreport income or claim false deductions on income tax. That is not an excuse for cutting programs.
To combat fraud, errors and abuse at any level you would think additional oversight and auditing would be desirable. That’s not Trump’s view, he rather harm program participants.
Just days into his second term, on the night of January 24-25, 2025, President Trump fired at least 17 presidentially appointed inspectors general (IGs) across major federal agencies
The firings didn’t stop there. On October 15, 2025, Trump fired the inspector general for the Export-Import Bank, and Public Citizen noted at least four more IGs were fired after the initial January purge.
Between the firings, resignations, and vacancies carried over from the Biden administration, over 75% of presidentially appointed inspector general positions have ended up vacant.
How’s that for a rational strategy not politically or ideologically driven ❓
But there is a very real risk and that is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
Wall Street Journal- abolish the senate
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Thank you, Dick. These facts need to be repeated over and over until more people recognize the cruelty and false “economies” of our current administration. For years (or even decades) I have defended the Head Start program to a relative who believes that because Head Start kids don’t get into college at the same rate as more privileged children, it isn’t worth governmental support. Do people know that low-income homes don’t typically even get junk mail, at least not the homes where I was a visiting nurse for 20+ years? Generally no reading material in the homes at all unless they went to the library (not always possible for poor rural families) or someone signed them up for Dolly Parton’s books for children program (God bless Dolly!).
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You state, with emphasis:
“And, no, nobody pays for their own Social Security and Medicare benefits – Both are a collective risk using an insurance concept.”
No, Social Security and Medicare are wealth transfer systems, transfering wealth from current workers to past workers, and transfering wealth from higher income Americans to lower income Americans, and transfering wealth from long service (paying in over 35 years) to short service workers (paying in only 10 or so years).
Since 1936, because we haven’t run the trust fund dry, collectively we have funded benefits paid to date, but, no, many Americans have caused to be paid more, some much more, than they will ever receive from the Social Security and Medicare systems.
Just as important, the Medicare Trust Fund, currently funded with 2.9% of any and all wages and various tax surcharges, is closer to being funded with the taxes perhaps the third of the population with the highest income.
However, again, pretty much anyone who has worked for more than 35 years, with a higher income, will have paid both income taxes and FICA-Med taxes far, far in excess of the Medicare benefits they will receive.
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Story, what you describe is an insurance pool. Every form of insurance from auto to home owner provides collective protection with benefits going to others. Frankly, I hope to never get a return on any insurance I buy. Transfer all my premiums to someone less fortunate.
I paid $98,000 in Medicare taxes + and of course premiums now. That $98,000 covers me and my wife. I wish we never got anything for it, but alas benefits related to an eye injury alone were over twice that amount. Now weekly treatments for illness are $14,000 to $20,000 and that’s only part of the cost.
That is no different in terms of “wealth transfer” than if I was still working using employer coverage.
I paid $132,000 in SS taxes from 1959 to 2010. For sure, that (plus employer amount) did not pay for the benefits we have collected since 2008 on those earnings. But it could have been otherwise, for some it is.
It’s all insurance, pooling, risk with some winners, some losers. I guess you could call it wealth transfer, but no insurance works if every participant collects any amount equal to or greater than their premiums/taxes.
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No, Insurance 101 confirms that an insurance pool gathers like risks and prices them according to the risk to be transfered to the insurer.
Neither Social Security or Medicare are insurance pools. There is no transfer of risk. There is no commonality other than 40 quarters of paying certain taxes and age. These are not risk transfer programs, no one is buying insurance, these are social welfare programs with trusts designed to collect and redistribute wealth.
Nothing more, nothing less.
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The only part of SS that may not be considered insurance is that the income benefits are skewed to the lower income worker. Other than that people are protected from unplanned, unanticipated risk such as death and disability. It is social insurance.
Medicare protects against risk which is paid for via taxes and premiums. Just like private insurance one person may collect many times their payments and another nothing in return. While I was working I never collected on health insurance for which I am grateful, but others received many thousands in benefits. Is that wealth transfer too?
My home insurance went up because the insurer experienced significant losses in other parts of the country while I never had a claim. Is that wealth transfer from me to them?
The insurer may carry the risk, but ultimately it comes from the insured.
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Respectfully disagree.
No risk was transferred to the Social Security Administration or HHS/CMS, only allocated among current and future taxpayers as wealth transfers.
Congress could eliminate both programs tomorrow and you and I would have no recourse for all the taxes we paid – regardless of whether the monies we have received to date were more or less than the “premium” we paid. Congress could also laser me out tomorrow and there is nothing I could do.
People are not protected from unplanned, unanticipated risk such as death and disability. We are all going to die. If we were buying life/death insurance, the proceeds would be tax free per IRC 101 (not income), and benefit would be paid regardless of marital status. If it were disability insurance, why doesn’t coverage start when you start paying premiums (the DI, in OASDI)?
“While I was working I never collected on health insurance for which I am grateful, but others received many thousands in benefits.” The comparison isn’t what you received versus what others received. The comparison is what you and your employer paid (premium/contributions) and what you received – the coverage, the risk transfer.
When you pay FICA, FICA-Med, and income taxes, you didn’t transfer any risk to Social Security and Medicare, to the federal government. For example, you and I both paid FICA, FICA-Med and income taxes for years prior to 1983, but, the benefits/coverage we thought we were buying, the risk we thought we were transferring changed in 1983.
So, yes, “social insurance” is a wealth transfer – a transfer or reallocation of wealth among current and future generations. There is no contract of insurance. There isn’t even a firm promise.
“… My home insurance went up because the insurer experienced significant losses in other parts of the country while I never had a claim. Is that wealth transfer from me to them? …” No, that is insurance, where the insurer in your location raised rates in anticipation of higher losses in the future to accept the risk for the future period. For example, if another insurer is accepting the risk of loss on your home at a lower price, you can certainly make a change.
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Does any insurance company take any risk over the long term or does it seek full recovery plus $ from those paying premiums?
The risk being covered is worker early death, disability and disabled children. Many people don’t have insurance for any of that.
As far as wealth transfer goes, that always will occur in a society. It doesn’t bother me.
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“Does any insurance company take any risk over the long term or does it seek full recovery plus $ from those paying premiums?” People are free to come and go. So, the insurance company won’t necessarily recover from those who are insured, but reprice the risk as necessary for policies sold to others.
“The risk being covered is worker early death” (no, unless the worker has a spouse or children), “disability” (not if disability occurs in the first 10 years of employment subject to FICA) and “disabled children” (nope, Medicare doesn’t apply to disabled children, Medicaid might).
“Many people don’t have insurance for any of that.” And, even if they are paying FICA, they may not have insurance either.
“As far as wealth transfer goes, that always will occur in a society. It doesn’t bother me.”
Doesn’t bother me either. Congressional and Presidential lying and vote buying does bother me. Perennially running Trillion dollar deficits bothers me too.
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