Many Americans have paid into FICA for years, and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that they are getting
taxed on 85% of the money they paid to the federal government to put away.
Immigrants moved into this country and at 65 got Social Security. The government gave that to them although they never paid a dime into it.
Senators and Congress men and women do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for
themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congress person has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this: when they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die, except it may increase
from time to time for cost of living adjustments.
For example: Former Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 ( That's Seven Million,Eight-Hundred, Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.
This is calculated on an average life span for each. Their cost for this excellent plan is $00.00. Nada! Zilch!
This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. The rest of America picks up the tab for this plan.
The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds, our tax dollars at work!
From our own Social Security Plan, which many Americans and myself pay (or have paid) into
every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer) we can expect to get an average $1,000 per month after retirement. Or, in
other words, we would have to collect our average of $1, 000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's
benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made. That change would be to jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under
the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us ... then sit back and watch how fast they would fix it.

I just couldn't believe what you were writing - it was too outrageous. Paticularly your numbers for Senator Byrd since he'll probably fall over any second now so they'd have to be either supposing he'd live to be 150 or his payments would be enormous.

So, a quick search and... if it's too outrageous to be true, it probably is:

It is not true that Congressmen do not pay into the Social Security fund. They pay into the fund just as everyone else does.

It was true prior to 1984 that Congressmen did not pay into the Social Security fund because they participated in a separate program for civil servants (the Civil Service Retirement System, or CSRS), but that program was closed to government employees hired after 1983:

In 1983, P.L. [Public Law] 98-21 required Social Security coverage for federal civilian employees first hired after 1983 and closed the CSRS [Civil Service Retirement System] to new federal employees and Members of Congress. All incumbent Members of Congress were required to be covered by Social Security, regardless of when they entered Congress. Members who had participated in CSRS before 1984 could elect to stay in that plan in addition to being covered by Social Security or elect coverage under an 'offset plan' that integrates CSRS and Social Security. Under the CSRS Offset Plan, an individual's contributions to CSRS and their pension benefits from that plan are reduced ('offset') by the amount of their contributions to, and benefits from, Social Security."

It is not true that Congressmen "continue to draw their same pay, until they die." The size of their pensions is determined by a number of factors (primarily length of service, but also when they joined Congress, their age at retirement, their salary, and the pension option they chose when they enrolled) and by law cannot exceed 80% of their salary at the time of their retirement.

The figures given as an example for Senator Bradley ($7,900,000 over the course of his and his wife's lifetime, culminating in a top payout of $275,000) are simply outrageous amounts with no basis in reality. There is no conceivable way Senator Bradley could draw anywhere near that amount of money though his pension plan.

It is not true that Congressmen "paid nothing in on any kind of retirement," and that their pension money "comes right out of the General Fund." Whether members of Congress participate in the older Civil Service Retirement System or the newer Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS), their pensions are funded through a combination of general tax provisions and contributions from the participants. Right now, members of Congress in the FERS plan must pay 1.3% of their salary to FERS and 6.2% in Social Security taxes.

As of 1998, the average annuity for retired members of Congress was $50,616 for those who retired under CSRS and $46,908 for those who retired under FERS. Not bad, but not the highway robbery this piece makes it out to be.
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/pensions.htm
And from another site:

The retirement benefit for all Members is based on is the same methodology as used for any other federal employee, a percentage of the average of their three highest consecutive salaries times years of service. However, Members of Congress and Congressional employees are treated as a "special group," a category also given to firefighters, law enforcement officials, and air traffic controllers. While all the "special people" receive a higher basic benefit (1.7% - vs. 1% for all other federal employees), all the "special group" people - including Members of Congress - also contribute more from their payroll checks to help pay for the additional benefit.

To see the explanation for how Members of Congress are treated as a special group from the Office of Personnel Management's retirement handbook, go to http://www.opm.gov/fers_election/ri_90/f_seg.htm#congress.

To check out more about the FERS program and retirement benefits for all federal employees, go to http://www.opm.gov/fers_election/ri_90/f_toc.htm.

Of course, for all federal employees, other factors -- prior military or civilian service, for example - are also considered in computing the actual amount of the annuity.
http://www.yourcongress.com/ViewArticle.asp?article_id=1717

People are more likely to believe in UFO's than they are to believe that they will recieve Social Security benefits.

Whether Elios' thing is truth or myth, it needs reform.

No social security system is ever going to be perfect. At least there's something there to be fixed.

Social security is doomed to die. Anyone currently working and counting on it for retirement is foolish. One of the telling signs is each and every tax bill that has been passed over the past few years. Each tax bill has been written to make it more and more advantageous for corporations and individuals to invest in their own retirement accounts. The most recent one passed by Bush actually offers tax credits to people making under $50,000 for contributions to their retirement plans. Congress and the past two administrations are telling people, without really telling them that you better start saving some of your nickels. Eventually the worlds oldest living Ponzi scheme will crash.

I'm not so sure about the death of S.S. I spoke a couple of years ago with Norm Stein, a pretty well regarded pension expert and GAO consulatant and according to him at that time the worst case scenario would result in a reduction of benefits paid for a certain number of years and then the benefits would go back up to the normal levels -- and that's if you don't tinker with SS at all.

Other economists are saying it's a phony crisis(the article and book are a few years old but still in line with what a number of voices are saying):

This is the situation facing Social Security, and it is well known to those who have looked at the numbers. The program will take in enough revenue to keep all of its promises for thirty-four years, without any changes at all. Thirty-four years is a long time--it's hard to think of any other program that can claim to be secure for that long. Furthermore, the forecast of a shortfall in 2034 is based on the economy limping along at less than a 1.7 percent annual rate of growth-- about half the rate of the previous three decades. If the economy were to grow at last year's rate, for example, the system would never run short of money.

But even if the dismal growth forecasts turn out to be true, and the program eventually runs a deficit, it's not exactly the end of the world. For one thing, the Social Security system would be far from "broke." While it would indeed be short of revenue to maintain promised benefits, it would still be able to pay retirees higher real benefits than they are receiving today. And the financing gap would not be that large by historical measures: it would be roughly equal to the amount by which we increased military spending between 1976 and 1986 (a period in which we were not, incidentally, at war)....

The simple truth is that our economy is generating more than enough income to provide a rising standard of living for future generations while meeting our commitments to Social Security. That's true even at the terribly slow rates of growth projected for the future.
http://www.cepr.net/columns/weisbrot/social_security_the_phony_crisis.htm

I suspect that there is danger of S.S. benefits being reduced in the future or some increases in the taxes but I really think that a lot of the predictions of doom are probably overblown. Old people are great voters and they care about social security. Scaring them and making them think you will protect their S.S. benefits is a good way to get a lot of votes.

Personally, I'm against privitization of SS because I don't want the government becoming the single largest owner of private industry in the world over night. I also don't think personal investment accounts replacing SS are feasible. I also don't want to see the risk premium destroyed by flooding the market with SS money but that's selfish of me I admit.

I also am not particularly fond of the idea of raising the FICA cap since this would make SS politically unstable.

Of course, I think the purported idea underlying SS is a farce. We should just be honest and create a means test for social security benefits. Which sort of contradicts what I just said about raising the FICA tax by making making the system less politically stable but, *shrug, I'm not always consistent I guess.