This is lying and hypocrisy at it’s finest, particularly since the Treasury’s final Monthly Report for September came out on October 24th. The report listing income and disbursements for the fiscal year. Anybody can download it at: http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html.

Here’s the nut of it:

But they stole $150 billion from entitlements. Money that is not supposed to be spent elsewhere. Money that comes from Social Security, Medicare, gas taxes, airport and airways taxes and dozens of other entitlements.

We will not know for certain just how much the entitlement trust funds increased until the December Treasury Report, but we can now make some fairly accurate guesses. This latest report estimates the Social Security Trust Fund at $1.007 trillion. A rise of $143 billion from its fiscal 1999 balance of $864 billion. If the interest paid against the 1999 balance is about 6.9 percent, as it has been for several of the past years, then Social Security’s excess/profit and contribution to the $150 billion surplus was $83.4 billion. We can be confident, it was at least $80 billion.

Social Security took in $480.6 billion in fiscal 2000, which means that more than 16 percent of it went into other government coffers. The $80 billion stolen or, as the government likes to put it, “borrowed” from Social Security was all money over and above what was required to meet Social Security’s obligations to the currently retired as well as the disabled. Extra money from FICA taxes goes in two directions, part to the Federal Old Age and Retirement Trust Fund and part to the Disability Insurance Trust Fund. These two accounts are merged into what’s called the Social Security Trust Fund.

This 16 percent of money stolen by Al and his cronies is exactly the same amount that George W. is talking about letting the younger generations invest in “personal accounts.” It’s excess income. Excess that, ever since Social Security was taken off the pay-as-you-go and put on a partial reserve system, is supposed to be invested wisely. Instead, it’s stolen by the government and spent elsewhere.

I’m not too hot for these personal accounts myself, but how can Al Gore run around frightening old retired people in Florida and elsewhere about the same amount of Social Security money that he’s currently stealing and applying to pay down part of the national debt? (see: “Debit Black Holes and Money Laundering” in this same issue)

What’s more, how can Al Gore talk about risky ventures in the stock market when his own government has the Thrift Savings Plan that allows two million federal employees to do exactly the same thing that Bush seems to be talking about for the younger generations? How much does Al Gore have in this same venture that has been returning an average 28 percent on investment for the last four years? Investments that are handled by Barclay Bank of Great Britain.

How can Al Gore claim that the Wall Street Journal supports his position when that newspaper came out with an article October 26th titled “Social Security Showdown” in which they claimed Al Gore’s position was “nonsense” and: “Right now, today, taxation is pouring more money into the Social Security system than is needed to cover all promised benefits to current retirees.”?

And tax refunds, boy, that’s another one. Gore accuses Bush of wanting to give most of any refund to the wealthiest one percent of the taxpayers. Millionaires who don’t need it. Gore wants to spread refunds amongst targeted people in the general population.

Look at it this way. Firestone tire owes a lot of people rebates, refunds, replacements or cash for Firestone tires that were defective. If a man has five cars in the garage, and each of them has these Firestone tires, then he deserves five new sets. If a man only has one car with these tires, he will only get one set or the equivalent in cash. And someone who doesn’t have a car at all, or a car with these Firestone tires, shouldn’t get anything at all. No one will argue with this. Even children will agree that it’s fair. How come it’s different when it comes to tax refunds?

Al Gore would give five sets of tires to the man who only has one car with these tires on it, maybe even no car at all. And he wouldn’t give the man with five cars in the garage anything at all. The millionaire can afford to replace his own tires. Does that really seem fair to you?

While you are watching the “Greatest Show on Earth,” coats off rallies and one way preaching, remember that Washington is full of brilliant people who haven’t got any common sense at all.

You might also remember Margaret Thatcher’s words: “If you have to claim to be a leader, you’re not.”