Social Security: protection against old-age poverty cash for boat payments

Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the signing of the Social Security Act, August 14th, 1935:

"This social security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old-age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.

We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age."

From USA Today: "Social Security hits first wave of boomers"

Casey-Kirschling recently moved with her husband, Patrick Kirschling, a university professor who turns 62 in March, into what had been their summer home on Maryland's Bohemia River. After years of working, they want the good life: time with family and friends, volunteer work, a villa in Florida and a 42-foot trawler to get them there. Its name: "First Boomer."

It gives me a warm feeling knowing that my FICA taxes, which I could have put into my kids' college fund, will go towards teak decking and nickel slots at the casino. God bless America!

Reminder - At the last census, the poverty rate for children under 18 was nearly double for those 65 and older (17.8% vs. 9.8%).