My Social Security benefits belong to me, Mr. Ryan, so please keep your greedy hands off

I had my first job when I was 10 years old or so. That means I have worked full or part-time for roughly 56 years. I earned every penny of my Social Security benefits, and I want Paul Ryan to keep his greedy hands off of them.

And don’t mess with my Medicare, either.

Like many kids I started out as a newspaper carrier. I delivered both the West-Virginian and the Pittsburgh Press with two canvas bags slung across my chest like crossed bandoleros. The newspapers weighed more than I did. Around the same time, I sold seeds from a catalog door-to-door, and when I was a little older and could be trusted not to run over my own feet, I mowed lawns for a real estate agency.

I had my first real job at 15, working for 62 1/2 cents an hour as a stock boy and “go-fer” at a small family market, and when I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, I moved up to delivery driver for a pharmacy making a whole $1 an hour. In college I worked at a supermarket, a shoe store and Sears in the Middletown Mall.

My family wasn’t dirt poor but we sure weren’t wealthy, either, so I had to work if I expected to have money for hamburgers, cigarettes and gas.

I quit working this year after 40 years as a journalist, a public relations manager and a freelance communications consultant, so I’m officially retired. My wife and I collect Social Security that helps keep us in groceries, utilities and gasoline for the cars, but it’s not easy when 25% of our total net income goes to cover health insurance premiums… which gets me back to the point. 

• Twenty million Americans are on Obamacare, including my wife who is not old enough for Medicare, 
• Another 54 million (like me) receive Medicare benefits, 
• And about 66 million Americans receive Social Security benefits. We are two of them.

I keep reading how Paul Ryan and his Republican cronies want to “privatize” these programs so they can cut government spending and use the savings to lower taxes for the rich – some of whom have never worked a day in their lives.

First off, I don’t know why the Republican leadership would want to piss off 74 million voters by taking away their income and health insurance. That’s millions more people than voted for either Clinton or Trump this year. More important, I don’t know where Paul Ryan or anybody else thinks they derive the moral authority to take these benefits away from me – especially Social Security which is MY MONEY that I paid into the fund most of my life.

So, Paul…may I call you Paul? I have a few questions. 

• What makes you think you can steal this money from me and my wife to benefit your wealthy friends? 
• Did you get this idea from Rush Limbaugh, or did you read it in some Ayn Rand novel?
• Surely you didn't think this up all by yourself?
• As for you and your 1% pals, how much money do you think they need? 
• Is there ever such a thing as “rich enough?” 
• If you’re already rich, does it make you feel good to steal money from the poor and middle class, or is that how you got rich in the first place?

I don't know why you're so obsessed with this, Paul. Can’t you find something important to worry about, like how our country is falling apart, our environment is going to hell, we have children who don’t have enough to eat, we have military entanglements all around the world and the fact that you helped put a crazy man in the White House?

I’d think that would be enough for you, Paul, but apparently you want to add raping and pillaging America’s poor and middle class to your 2017 political agenda. 

Frankly, Paul, I don’t know how you can sleep.