Letter: Krauthammer is wrong about Social Security
Editor: Charles Krauthammer claims that "there is no Social Security Trust Fund," and yet, those workers who paid FICA taxes are owed this money. The fact is that Congress irresponsibly put that money into the general fund, in order to cover up their deficit spending to pay for the earmarks that they were piling on, in order to please their constituents so as to gain their votes during the next election.
It is now up to Congress to restore that money to those who paid their taxes for it -- over $2.8 trillion dollars. Instead of taking it out on the backs of those who paid into it, by denying them their rightful share, they are shamefully suggesting delaying the age when they would start to collect their Social Security check, or be eligible for Medicare (how would you feel if you were a coal miner, or factory worker, and were delayed another couple of years?). Despite the fact that your salary was less in actual dollars than in 1969, you would not be eligible for a cost-of-living adjustment, despite the fact that medical costs alone, on which most seniors are more dependent, have soared as much as 17 percent over the previous year.
Meanwhile, Congress has ensured that they themselves collect a generous COLA, by having it automatically spring into place every year.
By raising the cap that keeps a limit of $105,000 on taxable income for FICA, and by removing the tax breaks given to the ultra rich, there should be enough money to restore solvency to the Social Security Trust Fund.
Two thirds of seniors depend largely on those Social Security checks to keep them solvent.
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