GOLDEN TOILET AWARD FOR 1999

..........H.R. 1259, known as the Social Security "lock-box" bill passed the House of Representatives on May 26, 1999 by a vote of 416 to 12, very close to a unanimous vote. Since then, the bill has been in the Senate where the democrats have filibustered a vote on cloture. Cloture takes a three-fifths majority to bring the bill up for a vote without additional argument or amendment. Now, Congress is in recess until September 7th when we may see more of the same.
..........As Senator Spencer Abraham (R-Michigan) put it: "an additional $304 million of new Social Security surplus funds are added to the trust fund virtually every day. "
..........FICA contributions to Social Security and Medicare are calculated monthly. Whatever money is over and above monthly payments to the retired and disabled, the excess dollars Senator Abraham refers to as "surplus," is taken by Congress and the Administration and spent elsewhere.
..........Certificates of indebtedness are then issued to the trust and at the end of the year these are rolled over into nonmarketable bonds, with annual interest set. Interest is calculated on the basis of a four-year accounting cycle of the interest paid on long term Treasury bonds sold on the open market. Generally, this results in an interest rate for the nonmarketable bonds higher than what is currently offered on the open market. Last year's interest was paid at the rate of 6.9 percent.
..........At the close of fiscal '98, September 30th of last year, the Social Security Trust Fund held a grand total of $739 billion in these bonds. It will reach $846 billion by the end of September this fiscal year. $67 billion of these new bonds will be from excess/surplus and the rest from interest.

..........The lock-box bill, if it ever becomes law, addresses only half of the problem, and doesn't do that very well. Still, it's better than nothing.

..........All congressmen understand that the lock-box isn't a physical vault or safe-deposit box that will hold all the money. Under a general fund system, it simply is not possible to have such a mechanism or account. All money is held in one common pool that's called the Treasury.
..........Politicians also know that the lock-box bill is nothing more than a written agreement not to touch Social Security's excess/surplus/profits. A promise not to steal this money for other purposes or, at least, to make it embarrassing for anyone to stand before Congress or a budget committee and recommend appropriating it for anything other than a worthy emergency.
..........What constitutes "a worthy emergency" is what has been causing most of the arguments in the Senate. The democrats want amendments defining what is and what is not an emergency, making it more or less difficult to get at these funds under the rules.
..........Even if the lock-box idea passed and was capable of stopping or at least putting a hold on the misuse of Social Security money, we would still be faced with a major problem. We would still have solved only half of the problem.

..........For years, Congress and various Administrations have been robbing trust funds. Then, to compound the crime, they've been depositing nonmarketable bonds in the trust funds they've plundered.
..........Sometimes referred to as "special obligation" nonmarketable bonds, these promissory notes are unique. Not only is it prohibited to transfer or trade these bonds on the open market, but they can only be redeemed by you, the taxpayer, the very same people who put the excess money up in the first place. These are special obligation all right. They represent double taxation, plain and simple.
..........We the people would be better off if these bonds never existed, if they were simply liquidated, deleted or otherwise wiped off the books. There may be no actual money in the many trust funds but these obligations are very real. They represent debt for the public. No one else can redeem them. They are recorded in The Bureau of Public Debt, for God's sake. Every dollar you contribute over and above what it takes for Social Security, Medicare, the Department of Transportation, or any other taxing body to meet its annual obligations—becomes another dollar that you owe, a minus 100 percent return on your money. It's absolutely ludicrous and downright criminal.
..........H.R. 1259 does not address this problem at all. And even if it put a loosie-goosie halt to the theft of excess monies, we would still have an increasing obligation. Last year, the Social Security Trust Fund alone received an additional $44 billion in these bogus bonds from interest that was due against the accumulated pile. The public's debt increases even if they don't steal the excess.
..........It's exactly the same as not recovering the money a bank robber stole, and then telling the bank that it must hand him the same amount again, with interest, for his trouble hiding or spending the loot. The government steals your retirement money, then demands that you replace it.
..........All this brought to you by politicians who want you to believe that they are "saving your children" and want you to re-elect them. You should, instead, be putting them in jail.

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