Although he didn't sponsor any legislation to reform Social Security, Senator Fitzgerald was one of the few people with his finger on the main problem.

Witness the following statement from the Senate floor while debating "lock-boxes" back in 1999:

A few years back Congress passed laws making it illegal for State and local governments to plunder the pension funds of their employees. But during all this time, where Congress has put these laws on the books and made it illegal in the private sector and at the State and local government level to plunder pension funds, we have gone on and on in Washington taking all the money that goes into the Social Security trust fund, taking every dime of it out, and spending it on some other program.

As a result, as I speak now on the Senate floor, there is no money in the Social Security trust fund. All of it has been taken out and spent on other programs. They have put meaningless, nonmarketable, nonnegotiable securities in the Social Security trust fund, securities that have no economic value because they cannot be sold to raise cash.

Right now our Government is building up, theoretically, surpluses in the Social Security trust fund, but they are taking all that money out and spending it. So when we actually need it to pay benefits, beginning in the year 2014, there will be no money there. No matter what the balance of those bogus IOUs is in the Social Security trust fund, in the year 2014--whether that balance is $1 trillion or $5 trillion--they are of no assistance in paying benefits to those who depend on Social Security. The country will either have to raise taxes or cut benefits to make up for the shortfall that is anticipated after the year 2014.

This legislation is basic, decent common sense. We should not allow Congress to continue frittering away the Social Security trust fund. I urge all my colleagues to support it and end this outrageous practice of plundering the Social Security trust fund, to the detriment of our Nation's seniors and those who will be desiring to live on Social Security benefits in the next century.

You will never find such an admission from his counterpart in the Senate, tricky Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) who continually mouths deceptions regarding Social Security and other entitlements robbed.

Senator Fitzgerald is wrong, however, about the money being taken from the Social Security trust fund. It's actually stolen from the Treasury's general fund. The trust never holds anything but bogus bonds. This is a small point, but significant and perhaps the good Senator was simply trying to frame his remarks in a context that the rest of the crooks would understand or tolerate. Maybe, he was just putting part of it in their jargon.

At any rate, it's obvious that the Senator sees that nothing constructive will ever come to pass and has decided that there are better things in life than being a "maverick" in the Senate.