Social Security should remain as FDR envisioned it

Social Security should remain as FDR envisioned it
EDITOR:
Only a few years ago, President Bush called FDR's Social Security program "the single most successful program in government history."
FDR once said, "We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contribution a legal, moral, political right to collect their pensions and unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my program." Privatizing Social Security would add $2 trillion to the already runaway federal deficit do anything to enhance the program solvency. In fact, in order to restore solvency to privatized Social Security program younger workers benefits would have to be cut by 25 percent to 45 percent which is totally unacceptable. Younger workers would get hit twice once with reduction in Social Security and again with higher taxes they would be forced to carry in order to pay for Bush's expanding federal debt.
Does something need to be done to secure the financial future of Social Security? Yes, Social Security does face problems down the road, but Bush's would only make them worse by diverting trillions of dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund.
According to a U.S. Federal Reserve study, after reforms, the Chilean government has been pouring in money to "provide subsidies for workers failing to accumulate enough capital to provide a minimum pension." And pension reform was a major reason for Argentina's worst economic crisis ever when President Menem's decision to switch to private accounts had to be financed with government borrowing. British Prime Minister Thatcher's private pension plan suffered from high fees levied on private accounts, so much so that the government. had to impose a "change cap" on investment companies. Those fees continue to take a big chunk out of British retirement savings. The British commission report estimates that at least 75 percent of British with private pension accounts will not have enough savings to provide "adequate pension" at retirement.
Democrats will fight to protect and strengthen Social Security by assuring funding to guarantee workers the benefits they have paid for.
ED FREISEN
Newton Falls
Judges are out of control
EDITOR:
We have judges who are writing law from the bench. When Terri Schaivo was being killed by dehydration, the Congress and the president passed a law to ensure her rights as a disabled person be considered. State and federal judges acted as if there were no law and Mrs. Schaivo was not disabled.
Other examples abound concerning judicial activism. A teenager boasted that he could murder and get away with it because he was 17. When his case reached the Supreme Court, foreign opinion and law was cited as reason that the state could not execute the braggart. The Constitution clearly states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, yet the courts have often passed laws (judgements) that clearly do restrict the free exercise of religion. Congress passed a law against the murder of a partially born child. The Supreme Court nullified the law because it was against a previous judicial law they had passed.
There is a provision in the Constitution that states that Congress has the right to restrict the power of the Supreme Court. Now when Congress is considering the use of this Constitutional right to restrain the courts, your recent editorial ignores the Constitution and proclaims that any effort to restrain the courts is an imposition on the courts. Perhaps it is time that the courts were restrained somewhat.
STANTON W. DORAN
Youngstown