Here is an article recommended by RichardH.  The Fiscal Times story Of Course the Safety Net Redistributes Income…That’s Why It Works is by Mark Thoma.

This is what insurance does. It pools risk and distributes the losses across the participants in the program. Fire insurance, for example, pools the contributions of participants, and when somebody experiences a loss from fire the money is redistributed from those who did not have a fire to those who did. Everyone understands that the fees they pay provide this protection, and they don’t object when the pooled contributions are redistributed to cover losses.

It would be hard to believe that anyone who has insurance of any kind wouldn’t know what the above excerpt states.  Of course there is much more in the article itself.

The problem seems to be that so many people act like they don’t know the above when it comes to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax.  The money that gets deducted from your paycheck under the acronym FICA is what pays for your Social Security and Medicare INSURANCE.

If your fire insurance company came to you and said we are going to have to reduce your entitlement to a payoff if your house burned down because we have given too much of your insurance payments to the stock holders, would you just simply agree because you are worried about the financial stability of the insurance company?

So when the Congress comes to you and says we have to cut benefits you are entitled to from your insurance policy because we gave too much money to the stock holders of the Congress, why do you all nod your head in agreement?  It is the only fiscally sound thing to do, you repeat.  Do you ever say, your stock holders are making plenty of money so give me what I paid for and you contracted with me to pay me?

By the way, the stock holders of Congress are not we the people as you may so naively believe.  The stock holders are the corporations who spend billions of dollars lobbying Congress to give them benefits that are far larger than the money spent to lobby Congress.  That’s why is so important to realize that Corporations are people too.  Have some sympathy for them, please.