Monday, January 10, 2005

Reagan and Greenspan Were Fools?

From Slacktivist, an excerpt from his post today,Calling Reagan a Thief. Take time to read the entire essay. It says it well and uniquely, and has a great analogy to Joseph of the Old Testament.

"...Greenspan suggested, and Reagan signed into law, a payroll tax hike that still holds the record as the Biggest Tax Increase in American History. That tax hike hits people my age (I'm 36) and younger particularly hard -- we've been paying the premium payroll tax our entire working lives.

But the billions of dollars in payroll premiums we've contributed very well may have done the trick. The trustees of the Social Security Administration say that the trust fund created from our larger-than-usual payments will keep their program healthy and intact until at least 2042. The Congressional Budget Office thinks our contributions will carry the program through until 2052. By that point, the last wave of boomers will be in their late 80s, baby busters like me will have begun retiring....

The Bush administration wants to convince the American people that none of the above happened .... They treat us as a naive people who can simply forget and forgive the billions of dollars in payroll premiums we have already contributed to ensure the future of Social Security.

Or else they are trying to say that Greenspan and Reagan were fools or worse. What happened to the billions of dollars they took from us over the past two decades? The implication underlying all of Bush & Co.'s hype about a Social Security 'crisis' is that Greenspan and Reagan simply took this money and ran."

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