Here's how pretending works with entitlements:

1. First they pretend to "borrow" any excess or surplus that an entitlement like Social Security or gas taxes produce. We would all be better off if they just took the money and ran, but they don't. They must pretend to be honest.

2. Because they borrowed this money, they pretend to put IOUs away for every dollar they took. These IOUs are "special obligation" nonmarketable Treasury bonds invented specifically for the occasion. These are really UOUs.

3. They pretend that these bogus bonds have the same value as securities sold to investors in accordance with the Constitution, but there is no contract involved, the lenders were not asked, and in most cases the lenders don't even know that it's happening. It's like being robbed by a thief who steals into your house at night.

4. To further the pretense of borrowing, they add annual interest in the form of more bogus bonds. There's no real money involved. It doesn't cost them a cent to hand the entitlement trust fund more bogus bonds every year. But this interest adds to the national debt. Supreme pretense.

5. These bonds are held in a debit black hole account that the pirates pretend is a trust fund. In reality, this crooked bookkeeping has no resemblance to a real trust involved in the stewardship of property and managed by honest and accountable people. They just borrow the script.

6. These debit accounts are held under a part of the national debt labeled "Intragovernmental Holdings" to make the public believe that the government owes itself or one governmental department owes another. In reality, only taxpayer money can pay off this debt.

7. When they steal the next wad of surplus, and they always take all of it, the thieves pretend to be "raiding the trust fund." An act that is absolutely impossible since the phony trust never holds anything but debt. The Social Security Trust Fund currently accounts for 21.3 percent of the national debt. Eighteen other entitlement trusts make up another 20 percent for a grand total of 42 percent of the national debt. It's all debt and nothing but debt.

8. And finally, when there's a shortfall and an entitlement like Unemployment needs additional cash in order to meet its obligations, the Beltway Bandits "cash-in" some of these bogus bonds by drawing real money from the Treasury's General Fund of real cash. Funds that come from current income tax revenue or money borrowed honestly from investors, the national credit card.

9. Right now, as you read this, eleven different entitlement trusts are cashing in their bogus holdings. Thank God, these are the smaller trusts and Unemployment is the largest.

This is double taxation plain and simple. It's fraudulent as hell and much worse than any crime Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, or any of the private corporations have committed.

We gave them money, and they gave us debt in return. It's ludicrous and insane. In the case of Social Security, America's workers are buying back their own money with interest added. When the Labor Department cashes-in holdings of the Unemployment Trust Fund, for instance, every taxpayer in the country is replacing money that was already paid once before by employers but was stolen by the Beltway Bandits.

This is the greatest economic scam a government has ever pulled on its own people. The Beltway Bandits know exactly what they've been doing and are scared the public might find out. Like cornered rats, they are so afraid of disclosure that they would start wars to keep it under wraps and to keep the public from comparing them to minor criminals like Enron. War can be a great weapon of mass distraction.

We could reduce the national debt by $2.7 trillion overnight, in one fell swoop, by simply eliminating these bogus double taxation bonds. Delete them. Erase them from the books. Tear them up. It would be a great boon to the public and would not affect anything else.