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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (17127)	11/22/2002 6:43:05 PM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

<< The Treasury bills in the "trust fund" have nothing to do with the perception of obligation on the part of the United States government.>> Then why on earth did Ronald Reagan sign a bill raising payroll taxes? It was supposed to be so SS would run a surplus, invest the surplus, and be prepared for the retirement of the baby boomers. Why have American workers been paying so much in payroll taxes if those SS held Treasury bills have no meaning? <<And the rate at which it will have to pay out will increase at a fairly rapid rate, thus putting increasing pressure on the general budget>> I asked you to back this up before and all you did was restate it. How is it that the small percentage of federal debt held by SS puts a more onerous burden on the federal budget than the remaining 5/6 of our debt? Where is your information that the timing of the SS debt coming due, over a 35 year period, is somehow different than the time frame for the rest of our debt coming due? Is this just your opinion? Remember George Bush campaigned on the premise that we had a 10 year surplus of 5.6 trillion dollars coming. He didn't mention that half of that was SS surplus money. He then went on, as President, to say: "The growing surplus exists because taxes are too high and government is charging more than it needs. The people of America have been overcharged and on their behalf, I am here to ask for a refund." Yet he didn't ask for a refund in the payroll taxes that accounted for half of that alleged future overpayment. Why? And now the "trust fund" is a fiction and SS will be in trouble in 2016 as soon as it starts depending on its Treasury notes to meet its obligations? If that's not a transfer of wealth from the relatively poor (those who pay the majority of the payroll taxes) to the relatively rich (those who pay the bulk of the income and estate taxes) i don't know what it is. Steve