First of all, any time the federal government has a surplus—it means that American taxpayers have been overtaxed. There is no debate about this. In our democratically elected Republic, it means that our elected representatives should consider overhauling the tax system and a refund to taxpayers.

There is one exception to this. That single exception is Social Security. In 1983, Social Security was taken off the “pay-as-you-go” system and put on a “partial reserve” system. From that point forward, Social Security is expected to have a surplus. An excess of receipts over expenditures that could be invested wisely and used to improve the supplemental retirement system while also making certain it never again has a shortfall.

We owe this plan to the 1982 Greenspan Commission, and particularly Senators Bob Dole (R-Kansas), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York) and Mr. Bob Barr (former head of the Social Security Administration), who played major roles in the commission. Along with Alan Greenspan, who was in private practice at the time, these were the chief architects of the “partial reserve” plan adopted in the early Reagan years.

Had this extra money been invested wisely, we might not be facing problems from an exaggerated baby-boomer generation or any other bump in the road. Unfortunately, it was not invested in anything beneficial to Social Security and instead turned into nothing more than a slush fund for additional spending by Congress and the Administration. Spending that also increased the national debt since every cent stolen from Social Security resulted in the substitution of bogus bonds in debit accounts that the government deliberately mislabels as trust funds. The crime became known as “off budget” revenue and it applies to all entitlements.

A couple of years ago, almost to the day that interest on the national debt hit one billion per day ($364 billion a year), Alan Greenspan (now Chairman of the Federal Reserve) awoke from slumber. Suddenly, he began telling everyone that it was important to “pay down the national debt.” What a surprising insight!

Now, we’ve got two gentlemen running for President who either haven’t got the slightest clue of how this happened or are part and parcel of the same corrupt system that created the problem. Neither one of them mentions the fact that these excesses have been stolen by Congress and the Administration and spent on pork-barrel ventures. They do, however, have different plans for how these excesses might be used in the future.

Al Gore, backed by Bob Barr and other Democrats, criticizes George W. Bush for wanting to put 2 of the 12.4 points of FICA taxes into “personal accounts” similar to the government’s own Thrift Savings Plan for its own government employees. Gore wants to put this same 16 percent of your Social Security and Medicare taxes into a money laundering scam to pay down the national debt. The Democrat’s fanciful scheme to pay down one part of the debt while running up the other part—as well as running up the overall national debt. The Clinton Administration is, in fact, already doing this.

The part Democrats have already been paying down is the part requiring annual cash interest payments to investors. The part run up by borrowing through Treasury securities sold to members of the public and other nations. This, they define as “public debt.”

By using or stealing surplus entitlement money to do this, they are running up the trust fund side of the national debt. The part that they conveniently define as “federal debt.” This little semantic trick makes it sound like the politicians, themselves, are going to take care of this part of the national debt somehow. A feat that would not be possible without your tax dollars. It would also be impossible without thinking that annual income and corporate taxes belong to politicians personally, like fealty paid to feudal lords.

The sole reason that they are doing this is that they do not pay annual interest to this second part of the debt—at least, not in cash. Instead, they simply hand the trust fund more bogus bonds, no cash involved. It’s no skin off their noses. In fact, it’s a big savings in annual cash interest paid out of operating funds. So, they come out way ahead in the deal. Not you. You, the taxpayer, or your children and grandchildren will eventually pay off these nonmarketable bonds with your future tax money—under the “Pay-It-Again, Sam” plan.

It’s not my fault that this extra money wasn’t invested wisely. It is, however, the taxpaying public’s fault for continually allowing Congress and the Administration to get away with stealing these surplus entitlement funds. It’s the public’s fault for not recognizing and putting a stop to it. And it’s the fault of the so-called watchdogs for allowing both Social Security and Medicare to become slush funds for wanton spending and our booming national debt. The latter being the combination of this theft and borrowing on the open market for the past twenty years or so.

Two lock-box bills (H.R. 1259 & H.R. 3859) passed the House of Representatives by overwhelming nonpartisan majority votes, only to die in the Senate. They died in the hands of the very same people who are advocating the money laundering scheme—the Democrats.

And what are taxpayers supposed to do about it? Well, that’s what elections are for. Elections are your one and only chance to throw the crooks and bums out.

You certainly can’t count on the television news, the press in this country or the so-called investigative watchdogs of the Fourth Estate to do anything about it, or even to mention it. For the most part, they are all part of the system that created the problem and benefactors of the booty. They live off the ads politicians run, particularly in an election year.

It may not seem as though you have much of a choice in this election. You may think that both candidates are pretty much alike, two peas in a pod, or that you can only pick the lesser of two evils. That they both want to continue these slush funds and trust abuse. And you may be right.

Take a close look at what Al Gore is saying and the hypocrisy and lying involved. He claims that he and Al Lieberman would “lock box” Social Security and Medicare money—while it’s he and his party that have killed both lock-box bills so they can do their money laundering scheme. This is not a small lie or exaggeration on Mr. Gore’s part.