Social Security is not an entitlement. I paid into the Social Security system for 30 years. My husband paid into the Social Security system for 10 years but, because he went to work for the state of Maine for 27 years, he is not entitled to his full Social Security, only a very small amount.

The Social Security system is going bankrupt. Why? Because federal senators and congressmen decided to spend it.

If officials of any bank in America did what government officials have done, they would be in jail for embezzlement.

Instead of our government giving billions of dollars to warring Arab nations and the Palestinians, they should give the money back to Social Security.

The government mandated that all working people pay into Social Security. If people could opt out, they would have put that money into their own IRAs or savings accounts and been a lot richer.

Now, government officials are telling people that Social Security will soon be gone and the public, not them, will suffer the consequences. The ones who spent the money will never be held accountable and they will get a huge retirement check after only four years in office (paid for with tax dollars).

Welfare is an entitlement; MaineCare is an entitlement; rent relief is an entitlement; free college for illegals is an entitlement, and all the many other free programs that give away tax dollars to those who don’t or won’t work.

Mary Jane Newell, Oxford