Legal thievery

[Gunit_Sangh]

I'm somewhat shocked. Our local paper published this LTTE 3 days after I sent it in. It usually takes a week.


On Sept. 1, 2001, the U.S. debt was $5.8 trillion. It is now just under $7.8 trillion and growing at the rate of nearly $2 billion a day. Foreign countries own nearly $2 trillion of that debt. Japan has loaned the United States $701.6 billion, China $194.5 billion and England $163 billion.

President Bush recently visited the Bureau of Public Debt and proclaimed that the $1.7 trillion of Treasury bills owned by the Social Security Administration are worthless IOUs. If those foreign countries deserve to get their loans paid back with interest, shouldn't we? Bush apparently doesn't think so.

Instead of paying back the money the government has borrowed from the Social Security taxes we have paid over the past 20 years, the cut-taxes-and-spend-like-a-drunken-sailor Republicans in Congress would rather slash Social Security benefits to the point where that debt will never have to be repaid.

If this administration has no intention of paying back the Social Security taxes that have been borrowed to fund government operations, why are we still paying $150 billion more in Social Security taxes than is needed to pay benefits?

Oops. How silly of me. If they stopped stealing the excess Social Security taxes we've been paying to pre-fund our retirement, they might have to increase taxes on their wealthy campaign contributors.

We can't have that, can we?


http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/11340962.htm

[liberal N proud]

1. Good letter.

Thanks for sharing

[sharonking21]

2. Congratulations

Excellent letter.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. loved the phrase

cut-taxes-and-spend-like-a-drunken-sailor!

[rodeodance]

4. do people even know how stupid Bush came across this week before

he left for Rome?-and dangerous?

[leveymg]

5. Well done!

Here's an issue that Dems have some room to reach out to broaden the base.

It resonates on several levels with a lot of people. This has become a meme.

:applause: :bounce:

[Martin Eden]

6. Class Warfare & Wealth Redistribution

Great letter ... hit the nail on the head!

Conservatives have always railed against the redistribution of wealth, and are quick to shout "class warfare!" whenever someone suggests they should share some of the wealth they could not have accumulated without the sweat of the working classes.

Well, at least they stick to their conservative principles, right?

Wrong!

Their representative in the White House is trying to pull off one of the biggest scams in history. Payroll taxes on working Americans were raised 22 years ago to prefund their retirement. That fund, backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, was used to cover the deficits of the federal government. Those deficits were caused in no small measure by cutting taxes for the wealthy.

Now the commander-in-thief tells us those Treasury bonds are worthless -- which can only mean his intentions are to not repay the loan. This is nothing less than a massive redistribution of wealth from the retirement of working Americans to the coffers of the rich. It is brazen class warfare that will have a terrible impact on millions of American citizens in their old age -- but anyone who has the TEMERITY to point this out is accused by the thief's minions of being the wagers of class warfare.

The thievery itself is bad enough, but the commander is also a liar of the worst order. As he tries to sell a privatization scheme that will drain even more funding from the system, he assures older Americans that "nothing will change" in their benefits.

If U.S. Treasury bonds are worthless, then that assurance is worse than worthless -- it's a boldfaced lie aimed at citizens foolish enough to trust a president who wears his religion on one sleeve while stuffing retirement funds up the other.

[teryang]

7. Treasury Dept. protects duck's nest with eggs on sidewalk

Meanwhile, the nest eggs of a hundred million workers are being looted.

Don't you love government news items. It's a great human, erh, I mean duck interest story.

It must be from the "culture of life" erh, I mean, the culture of fraud.

If it's associated with a bush, you know its fraud.