You want to screw the government? Live as long as you can and collect Social Security. But make sure you're obese so you can put an extra strain on Medicare. I know it's hard to live long when you're obese, but if you put down the cigarettes and alcohol, you just might make it!
Factored into Social Security are the people who work their whole lives and pay into the system but due to self-inflicted lifestyle choices, die before collecting much or any of it. Add together all the deaths from the top preventable causes- smoking, obesity and alcohol being the top three- and then imagine if they lived. Imagine what that would do to Social Security if even just a half a million people a year lived to collect their benefits! Their premature deaths are factored into the system, which is why curbing the tobacco, alcohol or food industries in this country is more difficult than just changing social norms. It has much to do with how many people are voluntarily killing themselves before collecting their benefits.
If you are smoker, you work your whole life paying into a system that you will not live long enough to take advantage of. The government counts on that in their accounting, which makes the status quo a much more attractive option than outlawing a health menace and preventing premature deaths. This may also be a factor in the absence of Nicotine on the DEA's drug scheduling list. Because that is the main reason why cigarettes are still legal. Could you imagine what would happen if the DEA actually scheduled Nicotine as a drug? A dangerously addictive and lethal drug with no medicinal value? Cigarettes would be outlawed, smokers who stop smoking would live longer and Social Security would take a huge hit as all those people survive and collect their benefits. Just be thankful they can't outlaw eating your way to obesity, although Medicare could be saved by avoiding the added billions spent on treating self-inflicted diabetes.
There are those who say the government should butt out of people's lives and if people want to drink, smoke and eat themselves to death, why shouldn't they have the freedom to do so? Land of the free, home of the fat alcoholic smoker! Why not go all Libertarian and say that people should then be free to take any drugs or substances they want, not just those two legal taxable ones. You know, the ones that cause more harm and death than ALL other illegal drugs COMBINED? Or should it be the governments job to regulate all harmful and addictive substances, thereby not just saving people from their own self-inflicted demise but saving tax dollars spent on treating their self-inflicted maladies? Hmm, tough call. But look around our increasingly obese and unhealthy nation and you can see a problem with no easy answer. Let them abuse themselves and Medicare takes a huge hit. Save them so they'll live longer and Social Security takes a hit. Or just keep the status quo until something breaks and hope that future generations can fix it somehow. Hell, we've already pawned off huge debt on them; why not a national health crisis and some unsustainable entitlement programs?