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LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Article Excerpt
Byline: The Register-Guard

Tax cuts will rob the trust fund

The light just came on! Thanks to Charles Krauthammer (Register-Guard, Feb.18), I get it!

The reason the Republicans aren't worried about the national debt is that they don't plan to pay it off, at least the huge portion that is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund. Deadbeats always have excuses, and the latest one is that the trust fund doesn't really exist.

Never mind that the Social Security Administration claims to have kept track of every penny, both employee and employer contributions - together with compounded interest somewhat higher than inflation - and it's all documented with bond certificates guaranteed by "the full faith and credit of the United States of America."

The timing of the Social Security crisis is also clear to me. It goes along with making the rich people's tax cuts permanent. In 2018, the Social Security program will begin drawing on the trust fund. That means that all of us will need to pay the fund back from general revenues. If the trust fund indebtedness can be whisked away as carelessly as the Geneva Conventions, the Bill of Rights, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Kyoto Accords and the Sermon on the Mount; it's clear sailing for permanent tax cuts.

Our Democratic congressmen seem to know that this isn't very nice. I think we should all write to our Republican Sen. Gordon Smith and let him know that stiffing the trust fund, and all...

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