Seventh In A Series

by Ed Henry

The public did not initiate the campaign to "save" Social Security. The borrowholics in Washington started it for their own ends.

Even if they decide to drop the issue, we should not allow them to walk away unscathed and without implementing at least one of the issues it has sparked. We should not let them ignore the necessity of addressing the main problem Social Security does have, namely, getting it out of the hands of politicians who use Social Security as a source of "off budget" borrowing. Social Security is not their credit card.

We must make Social Security a separate, independent organization handling and investing its own funds just like any other pension fund. A separate entity where the borrowholics in Washington cannot get their hands on the money.

We should not permit President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Bob Kasich, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, or any other politician to simply test the waters with a possible campaign issue, with something as important to the American people as Social Security, and then, because they get a strong reaction that frightens them, simply walk away from it or engage in superfluous investigations and proposals that have little to do with the main problem (as they have with campaign finance reform, for instance).

And while we’re making certain that the borrowholics in Washington face facts, let’s reform some government trusts that truly need reform.

Trusts in need of reform

The Social Security Trust Fund represents an accumulation of excesses and interest (mostly since 1984) contributed by 137 million working Americans and their employers.

The Civil Service Retirement Trust represents 3.7 million government employees plus politicians, ex-presidents, and appointees. In no way can it represent retirement monies for more than 4 million government people.

Yet, the Civil Service Retirement Trust holds almost two-thirds as much as Social Security. Almost $400 billion in nonmarketable Treasury bonds.

How did so few people get so much money??? All of it our tax money by the way. Here’s part of the answer.

While you and I belong to a system where our employer contributes a dollar for every dollar we put in, one-to-one, the Civil Service Retirement system currently provides $8.36 for every dollar a government employee puts in. More than eight-to-one folks. Put $100 in and the federal government "matches" it with $836, all from your tax money. How do you like that for a gouge???

This varies somewhat with Civil Service. For instance, people working for the Post Office do not get as much as workers inside the beltway, but this only emphasizes the bigger gouge politicians and ex-presidents must be getting.

Personally, I say we put all of these people on Social Security like everybody else, throw all $400 billion against the national debt, and let these people set up their own investment pensions with their own money just like us common folk.

Politicians will argue that, ever since Alexander Hamilton died a pauper, no ex-president should be without a healthy pension.

And the Office of Personnel Management claims that the government must offer perks like this in order to attract high quality personnel. Do you buy that?

No doubt, the Pentagon would also claim to need its retirement program in order to attract volunteers. But we should take a close look at the need for this incentive also.

With today’s conflicts involving push-button technology, the Pentagon spending most of its budget on even more high tech killing machines, no real war to fight, and the possibility that a good part of today’s military "volunteers" come from criminal courts as an option to jail --- how many foot soldier infantry policemen do we need anyway?

Does the military really need a 20 year retirement incentive to attract youngsters into the service and keep them there? Remember the years of high priced television advertising we had so that the marines could attract just "a few good men."

Hey, if the borrowholics can look into our retirement system, we can certainly look into theirs. Do you know that the United States of America spends more money annually on defense than all other industrial nations of the world, combined?

(Ed Henry has a web site at http://www.poop.org with heavy emphasis on the national debt and its implications plus many member contributors.)

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