I recall many years ago my first introduction to Social Security. I was a fourteen year old freshman at Gainesville High School in Gainesville, Florida and took a part time job after school as a pin-setter at a local bowling alley in downtown Gainesville. Those were the days of the segregated South and the pin-setting jobs were the domain of black men who made their living and supported their families by setting pins. From the look I received from some of those men when I initially took the job I'm sure I was not well received. A small white boy interfering with their work; but as time went by not only was I accepted but they helped me out in the pits. We worked two lanes at a time, picking up pins, placing them in racks to set them and then jumping out of the way before the next bowling ball arrived to spray pins around the pits. Occasionally one of us would get clobbered by a flying pin but that was just part of the job. The work was fast, hot and tiring and our compensation was five cents a game.
At a nickel a game my weekly pay was easy to compute and we were paid after work each Friday. Friday nights were always the good nights as the drunks would come in to bowl and often they would roll an extra nickel down the lane after their games as a tip. We were paid cash in little brown envelops and I headed to the local Savings and Loan each Saturday morning to deposit my pay. One Friday night after work I was told that I couldn't be paid because I didn't have a card with a number on it. I was furious. I had worked hard and wanted my money. We lived across the street from the bowling alley behind a gas station so it didn't take long to run home to tell my Dad. I was sure he would storm back to the alley to retrieve my pay. But instead he said he knew what they were talking about and that we would take care of it on Monday. 
So, Monday after school my Dad and I went to a nice little office downtown where a nice lady with blue hair gave me a card and had me sign it in her presence. The card said "Do Not Use for Personal Identification." My Dad told me to take the card back to the bowling alley and I would be paid so that's exactly what I did the moment we got home. But when I counted my pay it was short. That's when I had my first experience with the Federal Government. The bowling alley manager said they took money out of my pay because I had a card with a number on it. So back home I ran to tell my Dad that the bowling alley had stolen my money. My Dad informed me that the manager was correct as he had to take money out of my pay check to give to old people I didn't know. I had a real hard time digesting all this. There were no old people setting pins with me in the pits and I didn't think they were entitled to any of my nickels. I learned as many others have in the past decades that if I didn't tell the Federal Government about my tips, the Government wouldn't take any of the tip money to give to old people. 
Now it is many years later. I have spent a life time contributing to social security and each month the Federal Government sends me a social security check. For most of my life the Government took in more money than it spent on social security so it spent the excess money on other things. Things like roads, enhanced welfare programs, medical care for the poor, federal housing, weapons, needless university studies, school funding and many other things many of which fell into the 'pork barrel' category. The decision to spend social security money elsewhere was made by politicians who have historically been unable to responsibly manage money. So today my four kids have to give a substantial amount of their pay each month to the government so the government can send me a check each month. It's hard on my kids as they have their own families to support and now they have to support me and other people they don't know. And of course there is now talk of means testing for recipients so it becomes a situation where everyone loses. 
I have often thought how much better it would have been if FDR, in all his wisdom, had sponsored a law requiring every working person to have a personal retirement account and contribute to it each month where the Federal Government would not have been involved. If that had been done there would not have been a massive bureaucratic agency, I would get a larger monthly check and my kids and grand kids would not have to contribute to my retirement but could concentrate on their own. It would have been so simple and so beneficially effective. But FDR was a Democrat who believed, as all Democrats believe, that Government control of individuals is preferable to individuals controlling their own lives. This is one of the fundamental differences between Republicans and Democrats. 

Marvin Brigman
President
The Okaloosa County Republican  Club
PO Box  5084
Fort Walton Beach, FL  32549
850.609.3341
info@OkaloosaRepublicanClub.org