This applies not only to the Social Security system currently holding almost 24 percent of the national debt but at least 30 other entitlements as well. One side of the national debt standing at roughly $3.8 trillion and 44 percent of the national debt is completely fraudulent and could be eliminated tomorrow without consequence to anyone but the perpetrators.

It's double taxation plain and simple, with interest added. And it amounts to maleficence and major fraud on the part of our government. Double bookkeeping, double taxation, deception and fraud at a level that makes Enron and other corporate swindlers look like children at play.

Pretending to borrow entitlement surpluses that could have been put into a real trust fund like the government's own Thrift Savings Plan or returned to taxpayers, the Beltway Bandits steal the surplus money, spend it wherever they please, and then play a bizarre con-game to make it look like honest borrowing.

Taxpayers would be better off if the pirates simply stole the money and ran, but the rule is that entitlement taxes are not to be spent on anything other than the purpose for which they were collected. For instance, everyone who buys gasoline pays a federal tax for highway maintenance and they are "entitled" to that service. There are many such taxes, including payroll taxes for the supplemental retirement system and health care.

Lies, deceit, fraud, duplicity, trickery, scare stories, and the misuse of the English language all play a role in disguising this scam. In government parlance insurance is not insurance, trust funds are not trusts, contributions are general taxes, debt is an investment, long standing budgets are raids, and services that have been paid for are not entitlements but a form of welfare. You need a translator to decipher what politicians really mean when they talk about Social Security in their native tongue.

The scam asks the American taxpayer to believe that it's possible to both spend and save the same money.

For instance, when payroll taxes roll into the Treasury the accountants know that 81 percent is for Social Security and 19 percent is for Medicare. The money is "earmarked" in that sense. They don't need to know any more, and once someone retires his or her benefits will be figured on the IRS tax records showing who he or she worked for, how much was earned, and therefore how much was paid in payroll taxes. From this, they determine your benefits.

Every month, the Social Security Administration sends the Treasury an updated list of who is to receive payments of how much so that checks or wire transfers can be made. From there, it's easy to figure out how much of the Social Security and Medicare taxes collected are surplus.

Not that it matters, but none of the money ever goes to the so-called Social Security trust funds, the Federal Old Age & Survivors Insurance trust fund and the Federal Disability Insurance trust fund usually combined to think of as one trust.

What sense would it make to transfer the money to the trust, even for five minutes, when it's going to come right back to the Treasury's general fund for disbursement in the budget.

What’s more, the administration, the Senate and House of Representatives each with their own Budget, Finance, Ways & Means, Tax, Appropriations, and other committees along with the Office of Management & Budgets (OMB), Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the General Accounting Office (GAO) have all been working hard to estimate just how much "off budget" money they can expect from entitlements like Social Security and where they're going to spend it. It's part of every annual budget.

As a result, all talk about "raiding" the Social Security trust fund or any entitlement trust is just that, nothing but talk. It's impossible to raid something that holds nothing but debt markers. What is really raided is the Treasury's general fund and that's raided when they plan the budget.

It’s at this point that the taxpaying public would be better off if the crooks had the integrity of pirates and simply took the money and ran, but they don't.

Believing that they are fulfilling their end of a "social contract" with taxpayers, the Beltway Bandits pretend to borrow entitlement surpluses. In so doing, they are actually fulfilling their end of a very valid implied contract that, in the case of Social Security, has existed for more than sixty years making it a hard and fast legality. Also, negating older Supreme Court cases like "Helvering vs. Davis" where rulings held that payroll taxes could be considered the same as general income taxes if the government didn't sell the program as insurance.

An implied contract is one in which agreement of the parties is demonstrated by acts and conduct. It doesn't have to be written or signed and can even be an oral agreement so long as there is demonstrable proof. What's more, the terms need not be expressly stated, but can be inferred from the conduct of the parties. Social Security is the granddaddy of all implied contracts.

The Hooker

Pretending to borrow surpluses, the government puts "special obligation" nonmarketable Treasury bonds in the respective entitlement's phony trust fund dollar-for-dollar for the money stolen and spent elsewhere. These bogus bonds were invented for the purpose, cannot be traded, are not issued under agreement of the lenders, and have absolutely no value whatsoever. They are simply markers such as the Mafia might hold over the head of a debtor.

These worthless bonds do, however, add to the national debt as well as the annual interest paid the debit black hole accounts. Interest paid without money involved and simply by handing the account more bogus bonds.

In the Analytical Perspectives Section of hit fiscal 2000 budget proposal, President Clinton said: "Trust Fund balances are available to finance future benefits...but only in a bookkeeping sense...they do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes or borrowing."

Speaking at the CATO Institute's Conference for Women and Social Security, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, June O'Neill put it this way; "It holds no real assets. Consequently, it does not generate funds to pay future benefits. These so-called trust fund 'assets' simply reflect the accumulated sum of funds transferred from Social Security over the years to finance other government operations."

Time after time, we've heard leading economists tell us that if and when the parent Social Security Administration must turn to its trust fund for money, the poor dears in Washington will be faced with the tough decision to either; (1) raise taxes (2) borrow enormous sums from investors or (3) cut benefits budgeted in discretionary spending or from the currently retired and disabled. Of course, they can do any combination of the three.

In the final analysis, these three choices mean that the so-called trust funds are both fraudulent and useless. These are the three normal choices of government fund raising whether there is a trust fund or not. They are exactly the same choices government would face if the bogus trust funds didn't even exist.