re: Non U.S. citizens who live here and bitch about the country

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Doesn't exempt you from taxes. In fact, unless he eventually becomes a permanent resident or citizen, he'll be contributing to social security without taking from it.

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Not exactly. Germany, Mexico and other countries have this agreement:

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Since the late 1970’s, the U.S. has established international social security agreements that coordinate the U.S. Social Security program with the comparable programs of other countries.

These international social security agreements are called “totalization agreements” and have two main purposes:

Eliminate dual social security taxation that occurs when a worker from one country works in another country and is required to pay social security taxes to both countries on the same earnings. As a result of existing totalization agreements, U.S. workers and employers currently are saving about $800 million annually in foreign taxes they do not have to pay.

Help fill gaps in benefit protection for workers who have divided their careers between the U.S. and another country, but who have not worked long enough in one or both countries to qualify for social security benefits. With totalization, workers are allowed to combine work credits from both countries to become eligible for benefits. The benefit amount paid is proportional to the amount of credits earned in the paying country.

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It then goes on to talk about the costs to the "Social Security Trust Fund" (which doesn't really exist other than IOUs, it's been raided since the 1980s), which verifies that work taxed in the U.S. has those SS taxes shipped overseas (the SS website wasn't very transparent about that, though).

LINK