Mr. Krugman uses the idea of privatizing Social Security as an example of how the Bush administration intimidates reporters and the public into believing that black is white and war is peace. Here's part of what he said:

"The Bush team's Orwellian propensities have long been apparent to anyone following its pronouncements on economics. Even during campaign 2000 these pronouncements relied on doublethink, the ability to believe two contradictory things at the same time. For example, George W. Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security always depended on the assertion that 2-1=4—that we can divert payroll taxes into high-yielding personal accounts, yet still use the same money to pay benefits to retirees."

You do see the scare tactics there, don't you? People currently retired and disabled will not get their money—booga, booga.

Democrats have been broadcasting this terror story for ages. And you can't really blame them. Bush and the republicans are almost as bad with no argument in return, no rebuttal.

No one, absolutely no one, tells the American public that any talk of privatization should involve only the surplus that Social Security generates in the billions. The profit it doesn't need in order to make its monthly commitments to the retired and disabled, the $98.7 billion that the government stole last year, the fraud and embezzlement that has so far put American taxpayers $1.3 trillion in the hole.

Even the Cato Institute that Mr. Krugman quite rightly accuses of spearheading the fight to privatize Social Security doesn't mention this surplus. Of course not, they are pushing for the full, expensive, and outlandishly ridiculous program of privatizing the entire Social Security Administration. What is probably the only separate governmental body operating efficiently from their home in Baltimore, Maryland. These Cato people are either nitwits or part of the plot to stall and accomplish nothing.

And isn't it interesting how Mr. Krugman twists the truth into his own flimflam when he tells us that privatization depends on the idea "that we can divert payroll taxes into high-yielding personal accounts, yet still use the same money to pay benefits to retirees"???

That statement is almost exactly the reverse of what the Beltway Bandits actually do when they take our surplus retirement and health care payments, spend them elsewhere, and then pretend that they can both spend and save the same money by putting UOU trash markers in a debit black hole account that they call a "trust fund." A debt account that must someday be paid off with taxpayer money. A scam that amounts to double taxation with interest added. The greatest fraud any government has ever pulled on its own citizens.

Only the lonely.

As far as I know, I'm the only person that has been telling you for years that any talk of privatization, or whatever you want to call it, should involve—only the surplus.

The rest of them, including every organization inside the Beltway, have been supporting this rip-off. Stalling to make certain nothing happens.

In any reform, the logical first step would be to stop the bleeding. Put an end to stealing our retirement and health care surpluses which continue to flow into U.S. Treasury coffers in the hundreds of billions. Stopping the flow is not complicated although the spinsters try to make it seem so.

An honest government could do either of two simple things. First solution, reduce payroll taxes to break even. There is no need for a surplus when the fed has the constitutional ability to borrow instantly from investors under honest contract in case of a shortfall.

Second, the pirates could have at any time put the surpluses in a real trust fund just as they have their own Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees. Even if the cash just sat there without investment we would be better off than going in the hole with debt. The debit black hole account that they call a "trust fund" is now 21.4 percent of the national debt.

And yes, Mr. Krugman, war is peace in their minds. If you really want something to think about as a more heinous accusation involving the Beltway Bandits, recognize the fact that their scam was coming unraveled as never before during the two months prior to September eleventh, 2001. While the enormous sums involved certainly are not worth so many American lives, the loss of power that exposure would bring with it might have been and still would be.