It was a good article considering that it came from a lawyer who obviously had not done much research on the Social Security problem and accepts many of the federal government's story lines at face value. Professor Jackson deserves a "C" for effort.

Let's look at some of his points that are patently untrue.

First of all, the good professor makes the same mistake many make in assuming that the amount the Social Security trust funds increase during any given year is the amount of surplus Social Security generated for that year. Such an assumption completely ignores the fact that the government's game of pretending to "borrow" the surplus requires they pay the trust annual interest by simply handing the black hole debit account more bogus bonds; i.e., more "special obligation nonmarketable Treasury securities." There's no real money involved until our children or grandchildren must redeem this part of the debt.

When Professor Jackson says; "Last year, Social Security enjoyed a surplus of roughly $160 billion. The government used this money to mask what would otherwise have been a $560 billion federal deficit" he's mistakenly telling a fib.

I assume he's talking about fiscal 2003 in this statement since, as I reported a few days ago, the true deficit for fiscal 2003 was $555 billion, closer to his number than the year before that.

However, he could be talking about fiscal 2002 where the Social Security trust funds went up by $159.1 billion and the true deficit was $421 billion. Social Security "enjoyed" an $89 billion surplus in fiscal 2002. It's a little difficult to tell precisely which fiscal year he's talking about.

Further complicating things is the fact that we will not know how much the Social Security trust funds increased during fiscal 2003 until the U.S. Treasury comes out with it's "Monthly Statement" fourteen working days into October. The September report gives us the final trust balance for the year. From there, we need their percentage rate of interest (another table) in order to determine how much cash surplus Social Security produced with its greater than necessary payroll taxation.

Another falsehood stems from simply not keeping up to date with events. At the very beginning of his article Professor Jackson says; "Last week the federal government ended the fiscal year with a reported deficit of approximately $400 billion, pushing the federal debt held by the public to nearly $4 trillion."

$400 billion was not the "reported" deficit. It was an estimate of where we were going to end up. An estimate made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) several weeks before September 30th, the close of the fiscal year. As such, it did not allow for the tricks of the Treasury or John Snow. In fact, the CBO or the Office of Management & Budgets (OMB) had predicted a $455 billion deficit only a short time before the revision to $400 billion.

By the end of August, 2003, one month before the close of the fiscal year, the "Investor" side of the national debt, what the government deceptively labels "Public Debt," had increased $394.7 billion for the year. Hence, it was reasonable to assume we were going to end up with a higher figure.

However, during September, the crafty Treasury paid down some of this Investor Debt and we ended up with a yearly total increase of $370.9 billion in "Public Debt." This is the figure the government will report as the fiscal 2003 deficit by their Enron style way of accounting.

The very next day, October 1st, and the beginning of a new fiscal year, the national debt went up $21.3 billion and as of October 6th has increased $31.2 billion over the September 30th closing figure.

Another thing the good professor claims is that; "By the end of last year, the Social Security system owed retirees and current workers benefits valued at $14 trillion. The system's assets, in contrast, were only $3.5 trillion. These assets include not only the trust funds' (sic) current reserves ($1.4 trillion), but also the present value of the taxes that current workers will pay over the remainder of their working lives ($2.1 trillion)."

He's got the $1.4 trillion of double taxation plus interest held by the trust fund (reserves) correct, but where the hell does he get the idea that 138 million currently employed workers will only pay $2.1 trillion over the remainder of their working lives? That figure is absolutely nutsey.

Last year, fiscal 2002, the U.S. Treasury reported Social Security receipts at $456 billion and the payout was $89 billion less than that. Are people only going to work another five years? That's how long it will take to rake in $2.1 trillion. We don't need fear stories like this.

God knows I need help in reporting the rip-off of our retirement and health care money, but let's get the numbers straight.

You can find running tables on the debt and individual trust funds on TUFF's web sit