Neocon tactic to destroy Social Security is unraveling

Neocon tactic to destroy Social Security is unraveling
EDITOR:
Even before the ink dried on President Bush's tax cuts, questions lingered as to the logic behind those tax cuts for predominantly wealthy individuals, especially considering the nation was preparing for war. It's usually not prudent budgeting to cut taxes during or leading up to a war.
Now, with the focus of the Republicans on privatizing Social Security, the reasoning behind the tax cuts has become clear. Ever since FDR implemented the Social Security program, which remedied a situation where the vast majority of elderly Americans lived in poverty, the Republican focus has been to dismantle this and other social programs. They've tried the traditional methods including proposing cuts in the program. Usually, the politician dumb enough to go this route pays for it at re-election time. The neocons have found a subversive way to get around this. Why not starve the beast.
They decided to kill two birds with one stone. Cut taxes for their wealthy contributors while claiming that it was to get the economy out of recession and to recover from 9/11. The truth is that it was meant to create huge deficits which could then be used as the rationale for making deep cuts in social programs. The logic is almost flawless. Why would we want to leave huge deficits to our children? Selling the demise of Social Security would be easy if we used the children and the debt being passed on to them.
But alas, the sham is exposed. Top economists aren't buying into the program of scaring Americans into supporting Social Security cuts. The truth is that it isn't a "crisis" as Bush and his neocon buddies would have you believe. Bill Gross, the top bond fund manager, has called the privatization plan a bad idea. The same is true for another top economist, Irwin Kellner. Economists not directly aligned with the Bush administration are almost unanimous in their calls for minor tweaks for a system that has worked so well for 70 years.
Fear and subversive politics worked in getting Bush re-elected, let's hope that fear doesn't undermine what has been a cornerstone of the growth of the middle class in America. Our future depends on it.
BILL JOHNSON
Boardman
Social Security trust fundis nothing but paper
EDITOR:
There is no Social Security trust fund. The so-called trust fund is a fictional piece foisted on the unsuspecting populace by a fraudulent group of politicians pretending to fix the stability of a Ponzi scheme.
If the Social Insecurity scheme were to be foisted upon the workers by anybody other than Congress, the perpetrators would be jailed for good reason. Now that we have the program, the question is not whether it is in crisis, ut how much time is there before the crisis hits.
Some politicians are telling us that it isn't until 2042 or later. Don't believe the lie. The only thing in the trust fund are pretend bonds at a pretend rate of pretend interest. The Social Insecurity program begins to lose money sometime before 2020. That is when other federal programs will have to be cut to prevent massive federal borrowing.
By 2040 or soon after, the Social Insecurity takes so much money to keep the promises that the politicians made the seniors that the whole federal government becomes another Argentina. And this isn't even factoring into the equation the problems that Medicare and other health programs have.
The only hope we over 55 have is that the politicians do a massive overhaul of both Social Insecurity and Mediscare.
STANTON W. DORAN
Youngstown