So nice of you to not mention any Democrat presidents and Democrat controlled Congresses dipping into the Social Security trust.
Hey Mike, First, Allen said “politicians from both political parties began using the money like a giant slush fund” in the first sentence. Second, Republicans hate social security. They’ve been trying to abolish it or privatize it since its inception. Look at the record. Third, go find a Republican who is just as outraged about this issue. We’ll wait…
1st place ABUSE of the SS trust fund started in the 1950’s when the Democrats seen this big pot of money and decided to start taking from it for their pet projects and eventually started putting it into the general funds. These were to be paid back but as usual politicians never hold to their words. If our SS would of been left alone we would not have this problem today now would we. Republicans should of back this down when in power but they are just as bad. Who started taxing SS. Bill Clinton. Might want to go back into history and get all the updates on SS spending by our great politicians. (O;
I find it curious that the great Alan Greenspan and the commission he headed did not realize that the surplus would be spent. It is and has been the “law” since 1935. Gee, maybe they didn’t read it.
Mr. Hollings seems to blame the Treasury for the “siphoning”, when it is CONgress that spends the money. Of course Mr. Hollings also claimed the last budget surplus was the one given to Nixon by Johnson. There was no surplus, it was the unified budget that made it look that way.
Mr Reed apparently is unaware of the “law” also. How can CONgress steal the surplus when it is invested according to law?
So we are really the fault for not getting rid of these nuts but of coarse much of these takings from SS were hid just as they are doing in the great Healthcare bill
Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen to all those taxes CONgress want to collect for several years prior to implementing the new health care scheme. Can you say “trust fund”?
Barney Frank said it best: “I stipulate that legally we don’t have to. We are the government. We can do whatever we want, and nobody could sue us.” This in a hearing on Financial literacy and in discussing В«linkВ» the social security trust fund.
Why not hit the big delete key on all of the so-called trust funds and let’s start over. It dosen’t make any difference if they are there or not and at least the taxpayers won’t have to pay the interest. I guess that would require some honesty and is too much to expect from any CONgress.
Also SS was set up that no one was to touch them
Mike 2 is absolutely correct … Mr. Hollings seems to blame the Treasury for the “siphoning”, when it is CONgress that spends the money. Of course Mr. Hollings also claimed the last budget surplus was the one given to Nixon by Johnson. There was no surplus, it was the unified budget that made it look that way.
The “unified” budget (putting Social Security “on budget” happened in 1969 to understate the spending on the Vietnam War – to make it appear that social spending was greater than military spending.
If ABUSE of the SS fund started in the 1950’s with CONgress taking it for pet projects and eventually placing it in general funds, it seems the amount of $2.5 trillion in surplus taken by the CONgress and the Treasury in an understatement.
