June 17-24,1998

Vol.5, No.30

On Thursday, June 11, USA Today published (on page 8A) an article by William M. Welch titled "Federal Surplus Depends On How You Look At It" which just happened to appear one day after The Rock River Times published my article on "Do We Revolt --- Or Order A Pizza." The latter being my long summary of the Social Security situation and the lies we are being asked to accept.

I had hoped to go into seclusion researching subjects that might explain why the American people put up with the theft of their hard earned dollars, but then along came this article by Mr. Welch that just happens to be one of the truths coming to light amongst an overabundance of diversions and trivia given equal, if not much greater, weight by our major press and TV news readers.

The USA Today article reported that "the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) stuck by its projection that the federal government will finish this fiscal year Sept. 30 with a surplus of $43 billion to $63 billion, slightly more than the Clinton administration predicts."

But then Senators Byron Dorgan, (D-N.D.) and Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) wrote a letter to CBO Director June O’Neill, saying that "the rosy declarations of a surplus, touted by congressional leaders and President Clinton, are all wet. We believe you have a responsibility to report accurately to the American people that, until revenues exceed expenditures without using the Social Security trust fund, there is no budget surplus."

According to the article, "O’Neill responded last week, saying she agrees and promising a change. ‘I regret that the report you cited failed to report the on-budget deficit, excluding the surplus of the Social Security trust funds,’ she said."

Believe it or not, this is a major breakthrough from the CBO as well as in journalistic reporting by Gannett publications. It’s one example of the truth starting to come to light slowly, ever so slowly.

Senator Ernest F. (Fritz) Hollings authored a bill that Congress overwhelmingly approved and President Bush signed into law on November 5, 1990, known as Section 13301 of the Budget Act forbidding the president or Congress from reporting a budget using Social Security trust funds.

In an article titled "What Surplus?" published by The Washington Post on February 5, 1998, page A17, Senator Hollings wrote that "this stricture is violated every day. Even today, submitting a budget with a projected B surplus, the president is in violation of Section 13301. Worse, he is in violation of his own admonition in the State of the Union message. ‘Tonight I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus --- that’s every penny of any surplus --- until we have taken all measures necessary to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century.’ "

Once this is settled, peacefully or by revolution, we will probably want to excuse Senators Hollings and Dorgan from the criminal lineup, but not the rest of Congress. As you can see, most in Congress do not feel it necessary to even abide by their own laws.

For the last 16 years or so the Washington borrowholics have been taking billions not only from the Social Security Trust Fund but from more than 50 other trust funds as well. The grand total taken is now more than $1.7 trillion with Social Security, the largest trust fund, contributing more than $700 billion --- about $730 billion by the end of this fiscal year Sept. 30, 1998.

In their minds, no doubt, the fact that they left nonmarketable Treasury bonds in place of the actual cash exonerates them. Because they left these IOUs behind in each trust fund, they probably feel that they haven’t committed any crime.

But the fact that the borrowholics themselves have absolutely no way to redeem or pay back any of the cash taken from these trusts, coupled with the fact that they knew this going in, makes it a serious outright crime, a violation of basic trust principles, and a punishable offense. They have no way to pay any of these trusts back --- without taking the money from you, the citizens of this country, and thus making you pay for the same thing twice. It’s ludicrous.

The very fact that the federal government made it a rule that all the bonds issued to trusts be "nonmarketable" Treasury bonds proves that they knew they were double-charging American citizens at the very beginning and every single time they continue to take money from the trusts. These nonmarketable bonds cannot be sold on the open market. They cannot be sold to foreign countries. They cannot be sold to wealthy American citizens or anyone foolish enough to invest in a system that talks about default/bankruptcy. They can’t even be sold to the Federal Reserve.

These nonmarketable bonds can only be redeemed by the government. And even if everyone in the federal government were John D. (Jay) Rockefeller clones they would not have enough to buy these bonds back themselves. The government must redeem them with tax money; i.e., citizens end up paying for the same entitlement services twice. This is double billing and outright theft of the original money no matter how you look at it.

We should be bringing class action lawsuits against the President, Vice President, Secretary of the Treasury, every appointed trustee for the more than 50 different trusts, every member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senate Budget Committee, House Budget Committee, and all of the more than 400 members of the House of Representatives and 104 members of the Senate, individually and in common, as well as all former administrations back to at least 1980. At the very least, the charge would be misappropriation of trust fund monies and outright theft.

If I’m not mistaken, such a lawsuit could also contain a cease and desist order, thus bringing this trust fund piracy to an immediate halt.