Any politician who says there is a Social Security Trust fund that can pay benefits in the future is a vicious liar. There is no trust fund that can go bankrupt because there is no trust fund with any money in it. There is only the willingness of young workers to continue paying higher social security taxes for the increasing number of people on retirement. Those on retirement today had better wake up. Working families will rebel over much higher social security taxes that give them no benefits in the future. This means that benefits to retirees will have to be reduced, or at least no more inflation increases. But you can prevent this by stopping the fraud that has been robbing social security.

Here is what a recent Washington Post report had to say:
“Often ignored in the debate is the inevitable effect that the huge increase in payouts to retiring Boomers will have on the federal budget. That's because, in some ways, the Social Security Trust Fund is a fiction. It technically holds government bonds, but – as a way of disguising the size of the federal deficit – the government doesn't count those bonds as debt. So in about 15 years, when the trust fund starts turning in its bonds for cash to pay benefits, the government will have to raise that cash. It can do so in only three ways: by increasing taxes, cutting other spending or running a deficit.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/security/security.htm

Students and young workers:
You can easily verify what I say here in a few minutes on the internet. Check the references. You can download a copy of this report from the website www.pushback.com or from my webpage at www.kgo.com and email it to your unsuspecting friends PDQ.
If you think there will be any benefits for you from the excess social security taxes you are paying now, you have a shock coming. What you have is another massive debt coming your way that is bigger than your student loans and anything you will be able to save for a home for your family in the next ten years. You have a chance to stop it, but only if you get out and vote for those who have the courage to stop the fraud.



Retirees:
If you think there is a trust fund to guarantee your benefits, you are kidding yourself. A bunch of political liars in Washington are making fools out of you to scare you into voting for them. Young workers and families will not pay in twice as much for you if you don’t give them a fair shake that will cost you nothing.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress has several accurate public reports on the social security system. They confirm the following:

1. The CRS says bluntly: There is no social security trust fund with real money or assets in it. Most people, and most of the media, don’t realize that social security taxes taken from people’s paychecks are not paid into a social security bank account. They are paid directly into the federal government’s general account. Social security taxes are co-mingled with all other taxes collected. The so-called Social Security Trust Fund is nothing more than a book entry (like a number in your savings account book) that the Treasury Department keeps to show how much money it has paid out in social security benefits compared to how much of your social security taxes it has taken in. The government has spent over a trillion dollars of social security money that was not paid out in benefits to retirees.

2. In this year 2000, the government will take in social security taxes of 479 billion dollars -- taken directly from the paychecks of 95% of the working public. Benefits paid out to retirees will be 409 billion dollars. The extra 70 billion dollars will be kept by the Treasury Department. Treasury will give the Social Security Administration paper IOU’s for the 70 billion of excess social security taxes that were supposed to be saved for future retirement benefits. Worse yet, the Treasury will not subtract this 70 billion debt from the “federal surplus” that is claimed. Because your social security money was stolen, there was no real federal surplus the last two years.

3. Every year the Treasury Department spends all of your excess social security taxes collected (a trillion dollars to date) to pay the government’s bills for other programs. The Social Security Administration is given worthless paper IOU’s. These worthless IOU’s can only be paid by extracting even more taxes from working people in the future because the only source of money is taxes from the public. Hence, the debt, or so-called trust fund, is absolutely meaningless.

4. To cover this smoke and mirrors fraud and keep the unsuspecting suckers quiet, the politicians in Washington even designed the paper IOU’s (by law) so that they can never be sold to anyone (banks) for real money. They are not negotiable. This means that the Social Security Administration can not use the money to pay social security benefits. These IOU’s are not real treasury bills that have value. They are not assets. They are totally worthless -- that is unless taxpayers pay double taxes in the future to pay them off.

This vulgar fraud has been going on for sixty years. Some would like to stop it. Lying politicians are scaring the old folks and unsuspecting young workers alike with claims that the non-existent “Social Security Trust Fund” will go bankrupt if the excess social security taxes paid in are saved in a real bank account instead of being wasted by the government.

Working families and young people must get something for themselves if they are expected to pay for all benefits received by others over the next thirty years. By the year 2013, the social security taxes taken in at the present rate will not pay the retirement benefits promised. The tax rate must be increased or benefits must be reduced. Working people will have to pay even more social security taxes beyond the 15.3% that comes out of their wages today (the one half paid by employers really belongs to employees because it would be paid to them if there were no employer social security taxes). The best estimate is that social security taxes on working families will have to go up to 22% in order to pay benefits for others after 2013. Use your imagination. Will the working folks allow this if they know that there will be nothing for them when they retire?
However, if just a small part of the excess social security taxes being collected today, say just 10%, is saved in real bank accounts and not stolen by the government, retirement benefits could be increased for those on retirement and working families could have something actually saved for them in the future. It is stupid not to do this when the excess will be wasted by the politicians in Washington otherwise -- as it has been for the last sixty years.
What is wrong in saving some of the excess social security taxes being paid now for working families when they retire? Oh, what is wrong is that the lying politicians in Washington want to continue to use this “free” money to pay for their new give-away government programs that they are promising to buy votes for themselves – and the hell with young workers and their families. There was no government surplus the last two years because the politicians in Washington stole a hundred billion dollars of the peoples’ excess social security taxes collected and counted this as part of the “surplus.”
Do the simple arithmetic. If retirees want to save their benefits and young people want to save their future, they had better get out and vote this November for those who are telling the truth and willing to stop this fraud before it is too late.

I close with a story that is a good analogy to what has been happening. You can give it to those who don’t want to believe the official reports.
Suppose you must support your parents who are retired and you also want to save some for your retirement. So you give a banker $10,000 a year for the parents and an extra $5000 a year to save for you. The banker pays the parents, but he takes your $5000 and spends it on his own expenses each year. To keep you happy, he gives you a savings book that shows your balance with interest paid each year (the IOU’s). But when you go to get your money on retirement, he simply says that there is no money in the bank. He can only pay you if some other unsuspecting sucker will deposit his future retirement money in the bank. In the case of our social security system, you are the present sucker. Your children are the future suckers. Neither of you deserve this. Time to shoot the banker.

- Dr. Bill