The Beltway Bandits would like you to believe that somehow this is just money that the government owes itself, that one department owes another, or that politicians and bureaucrats will magically handle if it ever becomes necessary. A feat that they couldn't accomplish without taxpayer money if they were all John D. Rockefeller clones.

Previously, the crooks called this second set of debt ledgers "Federal Debt," but Alan Greenspeak felt that name raised too many questions so he gave them a new phrase. Intragovermental Holdings, just rolls right off the tongue doesn't it?

And how did we inherit this horrendous debt that will be passed on to our children and grandchildren?

Lo and behold, we got it by giving the government money. We bought it. Isn't that a kick?

Conversely, we wouldn't have this debt if we didn't give them extra money, what they call a "surplus"—if we just said "no" and didn't pay the extra entitlement taxes. Lop sixteen percent off the working man's payroll taxes. We'll get to keep that money and we'll save tons of debt. How can we lose?

Nancy Reagan was right on target with her "just say no" campaign. She just had the wrong subject. Applied to the war on drugs, it's a silly suggestion, and the sort of thing one would expect from their grandmother who never took a toke. But applied to being overtaxed it makes perfect sense, and it's a peaceful resolution to over-taxation, much better than throwing tea into Boston Harbor or starting a revolution.

Oh dear, I've used the forbidden word. Now I'll be flagged, or is it flogged? Do you think one of those rehabbed former military bases with turnstiles, new razor wire, and new heating and air mechanics is waiting for me, people who don't sit down, shut up, and wave our flags? Clinton certainly didn't prepare these for foreign "evildoers" we send to Git-Go did he?

Of course, it isn't easy to stop handing the government more payroll taxes than the Social Security Administration, located in Baltimore, needs in order to meet its obligations now and in the future. Employers deduct this money from your paycheck and match it with funds of their own. It's all really your cost of being employed, but it would be difficult to get your employer to go along with a "just say no" policy.

A few small companies are allowing their employees to make up their own minds. Instead of deducting half of the payroll tax from employee paychecks, and matching this amount to send to the government in one lump sum, these employers are giving the entire 15.3 percent to their employees and letting them decide whether they want to send it to the government or not. It doesn't change anything economically for the employer, but it certainly makes a difference to the employees.

If very many companies started doing this, it could put a serious crimp in the Social Security Administration's ability to meet its obligations to the currently retired and disabled. I am definitely not recommending this.

What I'm talking about in a "just say no" policy would apply only to the "surplus." Essentially, it says that if you're going to steal any surplus we provide and double bill us with interest, then we're not going to give it to you anymore.

In other words, the employees whose bosses give them the full 15.3 percent should deduct 16% of that money, or two points, and send the government 13.3 percent. That would take care of the surplus. The government wouldn't have it to play with anymore.

Strangely, and probably out of guilt, one of the main pirates who started this mess recommends the same thing. In 1998, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan introduced a bill to put payroll taxes back where they belong, at break-even, and delivered a speech about it called "Social Security Saved" to students at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

It's worthwhile reading this speech because he lays out exactly how he and Bob Dole raised payroll taxes after serving on the Greenspan Commission to Study Social Security that was commissioned after the Social Security Administration was forced to draw small amounts from its trust fund seven years in a row. This commission turned in a report that was as wishy-washy as the one Moynihan, as co-chair of Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, just turned in.

George W. Bush may have received the presidency based on his promise to give younger American workers the choice of "personal accounts" in which they can invest part of their payroll taxes.

If you think my "just say no" idea is ridiculous or hard to implement, the Bush plan is downright stupid for two reasons:

1) It puts an enormous paperwork burden on employers that we will all end up paying for in increased prices for products and services. Instead of sending in their periodic payroll taxes in one lump sum, as employers do now, they will be forced to report each of these younger employees separately and allow them to change options at will. Even the big retirement investment houses like the teacher's TIAA-CREF don't do this. Professor Milton Friedman isn't permitted to specify where his contributions are invested. Participants share in profits from the total and based on the amount of their individual contribution just like Social Security now determines how much a person receives when he or she retires. They take how much you contributed off your annual income tax returns and adjust for things like inflation. All the different places you worked during a lifetime provided you reported them all.

2) Why limit reform to the younger, entry level, lowest paid workers? If it works for them, why not do it for everyone? What difference does it make if John Q. only participates for one day before he reaches his sixty-fifth birthday and retires? Give him one day's share of the profits. Bush's plan is just another stall to limit reform to the smallest step possible and keep the lion's share for the government.

Remember that if the government were honest they could have put surplus entitlement payments in a real trust fund just as they have with their own Thrift Savings Account for federal employees. A retirement plan that works much like a 401(k), invests in the stock market's Standard & Poors Index, managed by Barclay Bank of Great Britain, audited by Arthur Andersen, with four percent in matching funds from taxpayer money. Look it up.