"The SSTF mechanism was indeed an excellent idea by Alan Greenspan. It did what it was supposed to do: store excess SS tax receipts for future needs. It certainly does NOT solve the SS program's long term problems. But it is not the 'scam' many people claim!"
Is this a true statement? What did Greenspan do? He raised taxes and delayed retirement age for a specific group of people. It did Did absolutely nothing about the cause of the problem. It treated a symptom like so many politicians do. Instead of looking at the problem and making the difficult decision like reducing benefits to be in line with what was paid into Social Security, they continued the scam another 16 years. In the process we saw a dramatic shift in taxes from Federal Income Taxes to FICA taxes. If Greenspan had not convinced Congress to raise taxes, but had convinced Congress to cut benefits in 1983, we would have a much smaller debt than we do now. Why would this be true? All the "squeezing out of federal income taxes would have been eliminated and the bite of FICA much smaller with a large resulting economic growth.
In essence all that extra money we paid into FICA which now constitutes 90% of the OASI and DI so called Trust fund would have been eliminated. This would have produced that much less debt. In addition. The two Trillion in excess FICA taxes paid over the past 16 years to retirees would have been used to pay federal expenses instead of OASI. In turn, there would have been a lot less interest paid on the debt and interest rates would have been lower.
It is time to eliminate the ponzi, inner generational tax, indentured servant system and what ever anyone else wants to call it.
