This is in reply to the Jan. 4 letter to the editor, “Thanks to ‘our wonderful’ Obama.” A reader thanked the President for an increased Medicare check she recently received.

Here’s the thing: The money didn’t come from Obama. As my parents taught me, money doesn’t grow on trees. All money in the government treasury comes from taxing, and borrowing against future taxes.

Ms. Zeldin, decades ago, before I was old enough to work, politicians told you a lie. They said that if you would just pay your Medicare taxes into the system, they’d pay you back when you got older.

You were told that if you would just accept the additional taxation, you wouldn’t have to pay for your own medical care in retirement.

It was a scam, a Ponzi scheme. They took the money and ran. Now you’re being paid back, not with your own tax money, but with mine.

Now, that’s bad enough. I understand — my own mother-in-law is facing expenses that she can’t cover in her own retirement.

I am willing to make personal sacrifices and pay for her retirement, and my own, if that means that my daughter (now 4 months old) won’t have to pay for mine.

I don’t expect that the money I pay into Medicare now will be there when I retire.

But it’s bad enough that I have to pay for the failed promises that were made when you were paying into “the system.” Now, Obama is promising you more on top of what you were already promised.

There is no way your additional benefits now could have been paid for by what you contributed in the past.

You’re thanking the thief who has taken from my wallet and put some of the money into your own. Pardon me if I don’t share your appreciation.

Danny Dolan

Peachtree City, Ga.