Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), recently published an article titled “Fiction on the Social Security Trust Fund” in which he tells us that the $1.8 trillion in debt markers currently held by the supplemental retirement and disability insurance program is going to be covered by the rich because they pay the most in personal and corporate income taxes. Isn’t that nice? The rest of us don’t have to worry about it anymore.
What a relief. For the last twelve years or so, I’ve been trying to point out how the federal government is running a scam by overcharging every American worker with excessive payroll taxes that produce surpluses the government spends anywhere it wants and does so as fast as this extra money comes into the U.S. Treasury coffers such as the $86.5 billion we gave them last year (see chart). Calling it an “investment,” they then substitute “special” nonmarketable bonds that can only be redeemed by taxpayers in a form of pure double taxation.
Had I only known that the plan was to go back to pre-1913 federal funding and let the wealthy handle all of this debt I could have relaxed and spent my time more enjoyably. Just think of all the pleasures I’ve missed by worrying about how the nation is going to pay off this part of the national debt, plus all the other so-called “trust funds” (currently 137 of them – see list) that are in the same boat as Social Security because they all hold nothing but these “special” nonmarketable Treasury securities that were put there as fast as the government spent the real money received.
No doubt, Mr. Baker would explain the tax breaks Bush has given the wealthy as a way to help them prepare for the day when the baby-boomers start to retire and they have to come up with the money to pay benefits. It must also be why companies that can are outsourcing jobs, moving operations to India, China, and third world countries or if they can’t move are hiring illegal border breakers to sustain themselves and continue operating at a profit to prepare for the day they will have to come up with the cash to pay off $3.5 trillion in entitlement “holdings” and perks the government has run up by stealing surpluses; i.e., the “Intragovernmental Holdings” portion of the national debt that is composed of nothing but these “special” bonds put there to tax and double tax us.
It makes me wonder why George W. Bush has been cutting budget programs, particularly social programs, and borrowing so much from foreign nations in order to cover budget deficits he and Congress planned over revenue plus the enormous cost of invasions, occupations, expanding our military/industrial Empire, and bringing democracy to the
For example, the “progressive” income taxes on the wealthy were not raised to cover the more than $30 billion in monthly shortfalls of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) last year or any of the many other “trust funds” that were drawn down. But the “regressive” payroll taxes were increased by raising the cap to $94,000 just as Bush has raised them every year he’s been in office.
Mr. Baker even draws the conclusion that the wealthy don’t really want to pay off this tab and that’s why they’re calling the Social Security trust fund “a fiction.” To quote Mr. Baker: “Of course, high income people don’t want to pay the taxes to repay the bonds. That is why they are so anxious to convince the public that the trust fund is not real. I calculated that defaulting on the trust fund would transfer more than $1 trillion from the bottom 94 percent of the income distribution to the richest 5 percent…The richest 1 percent of families would walk away with nearly $750,000 each.” Have you heard the rich denouncing federal trust funds?
I guess that makes me much wealthier than I thought I was. Maybe I should stop buying used cars and get a Hummer or Ferrari. I don’t find many others calling the government’s trust funds bogus. On the other hand, why should I believe something from a stink-tank inside the Beltway that’s probably in collusion with the crooks who’ve been pulling a scam that makes Enron look like a small fish in a pond of sharks and probably learned from them?
Sadly, one of the most disappointing things to me personally is the fact that I found this CEPR article published by Truthout, an Internet news source I respect and support. They’ve done an excellent job on news items you will not find elsewhere, but they’ve never published a single one of the articles I continuously send them, probably because I don’t have the credentials of Mr. Baker. And they are always asking for funds to continue while I’ve been paying all the costs of my own site without ads, pop-ups, or any contributions from anyone. Sometimes the truth is very difficult to accept, even when it’s backed by U.S. Treasury reports themselves.
