RE: Eliminate and Privatize

[Robert MacDonald <RMacDon937@AOL.com>]

Elimination of Social Security is not the answer to SS longevity
and equity.  While much of SS has operated on an relatively sound
basis of providing those on SS with prompt, regular checks, each
and every month, it is the surplus that offers the most reasonable
assurance of relief.  With a current debt to SS of over 850 billion
dollars and a projected surplus of a couple of trillion dollars,
we can hardly expect our government to have available funds to
redeem those bonds with a national debt of over 5.6 trillion dollars.
It is only through sound finacial investment of the surplus that
we can ever expect to relieve SS of the financial crisis that it
will face, not in 2032 but in 2013 when SS will start running a
deficit.  Should those of us wish to raise the issue of safety in
the investment in the general market, I would ask you, "Where is
the safety in the present surplus debt which has absolutely no
funds to back up those bonds and that debt must be met by increases
in FICA or a general tax increase?"  In comparison, the market,
which has an S & P 500 average annual increase of nearly 11 percent
over the past 60+ years, is a paragon of financial security!

It is with continuing frustration that I hear those who laud the
safety of our SS surplus and predictions of solid financial security
until the year 2032.  They then try to convince the rest of us by
reiterating the fact that it is backed by the security of our
government.  What a joke and falsehood perpetrated on an unsuspecting
public!  If we are to solve the SS dilemma, let us at least start
with an honest premise and not indicate that SS is secure until
2032.

Mac