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Uffff... I don't know specifics about your country, but in my country (that is also European one, as far as I know pension systems tend to be similar) the govt doesn't just store person's tax money in some vault until that person is old - any bank could do that if that was the case. And honestly, just saving money, like a proverbial dragon stores treasures in a cave, is freaking useless because of inflation. The money constantly lose value - "big savings" from the past would barely last for a few months now because everything is much more expensive (maybe this is not so useless for people from the US, but they are "special" as their currency is the strongest in the world). The taxes that are paid now are spent now on paying pensions for those who are old and retired right now, not in some distant future. The logic was "older people pay with their taxes for younger people's education, so younger people can get better jobs, and then younger people can pay from their taxes for old people's pensions", or "able-bodied, healthy, working adults pay for weak, jobless and not-able-bodied invalids, kids and elderly, because they received this support themselves as kids and they will receive it again when they old and weak". This is called something like "social agreement" or "generational agreement" within a society. People actually voted for this ages ago, generations ago, when no one could imagine our current problems - such problems didn't exist back then. Thus, in European countries usually basic school education is free of charge, and in some countries education in university is also either free or cheap, in other countries it's not for free for all students, but some programs with scholarships and other financial aids exist to make it still available for those from low-income families, who can't just pay for it themselves. So it's not "just pensions", it's actually a two-way support system, if you take out taxes for pensions now "because why I have to pay for them", then people would have to start to pay themselves for kids' education, kindergartens, schools and universities. This system actually works great in the most developed countries and if demographics of old and young is balanced out, but poorer European countries often don't feel full benefit from it because people in poor countries make less money and some might work illegally or have sketchy jobs that don't pay any taxes, so less money in taxes and in the economy, thus not enough for everyone (and in my country, I know, sadly is also ducking corruption, and education is fucked). Today most countries also have demographic problems, which also probably will negatively impact this system, but this system worked just fine for a long time.
This works differently in the US, their govt is apparently supposed to invest money for pensions in stocks instead of redistributing it (but they might do that half-assed now anyway), so it's incomparable to how these things work in Europe. (I have seen folks from the US who envy free childcare or education in the most developed European countries, which is possible particularly due to this system being different between the continents).
Politicians often care about being elected again in most democratic countries (they don't have to in authoritarian regimes), so they try to do what will give them the most votes. People wanted the weak and poor to be taken care of somehow, they asked for it and made it possible in some way. People do have some power, these days they are not always aware of it and don't know how to exercise it (especially how to exercise it without causing harm to themselves and others).
There's nothing here!