Lois and Mark Reid

Budgets, Hypocrisy, and Social Security

The Social Security program is classed by our congress as "off-budget." That is (they would like us to think), the program stands alone in accounting for its own monies and is not a part of the annual budget-setting process. Likewise, it is not included when our elected self-servants speak of the deficit or of the national debt.

Social Security, at least theoretically, has a trust fund, properly called the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Trust Fund. In governmental alphabet soup talk, it is referred to as the OASDI Trust Fund.

Also in theory, the trust fund contains all the "excess receipts" from individual and employer contributions over the years, money over and above what is required to be paid out in any given year to Social Security recipients.

Some have suggested that the Social Security program be put "on-budget," so that the income and future obligations of the program would be considered each year in congressional budget deliberations. Since the future obligations of the program are huge, representatives on both sides of the aisle would rather not face up to the truth. Even conservative Rush Limbaugh (a relentless pursuit of the truth) has opposed the on-budget idea because it would potentially give the congress an excuse to raise taxes.

The central truth, however, is that Social Security is neither on-budget nor off-budget. Our elected hypocrites want it -- and have it -- both ways.

Those "excess receipts" each year are "borrowed" and are counted as income in the budget process. If I receive income into my budget, how can I say that the income is "off-budget?"

Each year the "borrowed" receipts are replaced, not with regular treasury bonds, but with what the operators of this Ponzi scheme choose to call "Special Issue Bonds." If they called them IOU's, we would all catch on too quickly. These IOU's are actually U. S. Treasury securities, but are a "special class" of securities that are not shown as a debt in the budget.

Off in the future some time (after the current politicians have retired from office) the Social Security Administration will start "turning in" these IOU's for collection in order to make the required payments. The money to pay off those IOU's will then, and only then, be reflected in annual budgets. Presently, the IOU's are referred to as "unfunded liabilities." In ordinary language, we would say we have a debt that we cannot affort to pay.

When the Social Security Administration tries to "turn in" or redeem the Special Issue Bonds, where will the money come from?
It can only come from the taxpayers!! They stole our tax money to begin with, and now they can only repay with more taxpayer money. When we taxpayers owe a debt, that is a debt. No phony congressional word games can change it.

Meanwhile the congress can count income in the budget while they do not have to count corresponding debt in the budget, and they can try to convince us that they are "balancing the budget."

This is total hypocrisy! This is the work of charlatans, liars, and confidence men. We elected them, but we are not holding them accountable!

I have a suggestion.

Let's take Social Security totally off-budget. Let's stop lending the "excess receipts" to an irresponsible congress in return for worthless IOU's. Let us just be honest and truthful with one another.

Let us permit Social Security to invest current excess receipts only in interest-bearing securities guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U. S. Government, the same investment rules we place on federal credit unions.

Yes, that will play havock with the budget. And yes, the congress will be tempted to raise taxes. But alternatively, if forced to admit and then stop their deceptions, perhaps they can look at the many "desirable" expenses and say simply, "We can't afford it." Because that is the simple and honest truth!

How about all those outstanding IOU's?

Since Social Security has, by Government estimates, more than 30 years before total bankruptcy, we will "turn in" three percent of the IOU's each year in exchange for regular 30-year treasury bonds that earn and pay interest back into a real Social Security trust fund.

The results?

1. A major income shortfall to the congress now, in place of an even larger shortfall to be faced by our children and grandchildren.

2. A more rapidly increasing national debt, but actually only a 30-year gradual admission of the facts.

3. After all the IOU's have been redeemed, Treasury and other agencies have a large new customer for long-term securities. Interest rates will tend to be lowered.

4. A start. A start toward turning our country away from false solutions through deception and political trickery and toward a straightforward facing up to our problems.

5. Honesty and truthfullness.

UPDATE: Now our elected self-servants have passed a pork-barrel "highway" bill. If you doubt the theft from the so-called "Trust Funds," ask yourself what happened to all the money "invested" in the Highway Trust Fund over the last 29 years.

If your name appears on the following list, or if you know the whereabouts of any of these people, please e-mail the information.

James Marshall Allen
Harold Max Anthony
William Paul Ausman
Richard Warren Austin
Peggy Jane Autry

Robert Arthur Baker
Elizabeth Barton Price
Clara Nell Bates
Emma Jean Benton
Mary M. Boling Gullege
Fredonia Bond Wigley
Bobbie Brown
Robert McGehee Brown
James Ralph Bunton

Bloria Elaine Camp Harris
Miniard Thomas Caudle
Matt S. Chisling
Alice Clifton Dunlap
Bernard F. Clowdus
William C. Cooper
Robert Benjamin Cox
Bessie June Crenshaw
Dominic Michael Culotta

Ann Drennan
Donald Perry Dunlap
William Reid Duran, Jr.
Diane Durham Stephenson

Allen Jack Edwards
LaRue Elkin
William Young Elliott
Jill Emery Drummond
William J. Ezell, Jr.

Francis Flowers
Georgia Ann Fowler Underwood
Jeanne Fuqua Morrell

Olivia Virginia Gibbs Parker
Richard Albert Gore
Polly Griffin
Fay Guy

Elizabeth Harlan
Norma Jean Harris
Mary Francis Harrison
William Allen Hassell
John Newton Hays
Martha Higdon Pollard
Martha Holladay
Wanda Ruth Hunt

Luther R. Jones
Sarah Kathryn Jones Dungan

Gilbert Knowlton
Sam Daniel Kornegay, Jr.

Betty June Lawler
Clarence Norman Lee, Jr.
James Irwin Levenson
Shirley Long

John Richard Major
Robert Franklin Martin
Thomas David Martin, Jr.
Betty Jean McMichael
Raymond Mears
Bobby Frank Miller
Charles Parker Miller
Josephine Therese Milton
Harney Cecil Monroe
Willie Moore
Laura Ruth Morgan
Camille Morris
Ann Moss Marsh
Horace Monroe Mullins

Eugenia Newell Elmore

Kathryn Odom Hayes
Charles Alfred Oswald
Tommie Owens West

Norman Parker
Charles P. Pinson
Margaret Poe
Betty Jean Pratt
Joseph Ullman Puckett

Wallace Ray
William Boyd Reynolds
Robert Riddlehoover
Carolyn Robinson
Edna Earle Robinson
William Perry Rutledge

Emma Lou Saunders Read
C. Josephine Schefano Arno
Bob Scott
Jesse Monroe Scott, Jr.
Betty Josephine Sharp
Julia Smith
Ralph Smith
Harold Hunt Snow
William Carey Sorrell, Jr.
Jack King Sparks
Bill Stackhouse
Anne Langley Steele Andrews
Howard Stephens
Helen Stilwell LeBaron
Robert Stuckey

James Edward Templeton
Byron Thomas
Jimmy Thomas
William Bland Thomas
Lu Herman Treece
Mary Elizabeth Trull
James Truman
Richard L. Tyler Jr.

Ann Vann Cleveland
Jimmy Vincent

Arthur Willis Walker
James Louis Wallace
Lucy Taylor Warren
Louise Wearn Strother
Donald Whelan
Ceceil White
Norma Jean Whyte Norwood
Linda Sue Wilder
Cecil Franklin Wilhite
Patton Nathaniel Williams
Bill Willoughby
Charles Womble
Joseph Ward Wright
Sara Elizabeth Wyatt

Peggy Ruth York Fry

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