Tax Rebate and Social Security

In “Clinton’s Budget Legacy Lives On” (Opinion, Sept. 2), Robert L. Borosage states: “Both parties ‘raided’ the trust fund surpluses for years without anyone saying a word.” He also states: “Worse, the misleading rhetoric about ‘raiding Social Security’ only makes people think that Social Security is in dire straits, the big lie Bush needs to huckster people into trading deep cuts in guaranteed benefits for private accounts.”

Are we the people, who have been contributing to the Social Security trust fund, to assume that the politicians have stopped raiding the trust fund? As the politicians continue to raid the trust fund, wouldn’t it be in dire straits sooner rather than later? When the baby boomers all retire, and with these raids of the trust fund, are we to foolishly still assume there is going to be money left to pay the benefits? So, it is not even a lie, as Borosage claims it is? Is it?

Virgilio Mendoza

Los Angeles

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Michael Ramirez almost got it right, for a change, in his political cartoon of Sept. 4, “Stock Market.” However, instead of labeling the distressed patient “economic recovery” the patient should have been labeled “privatized Social Security.”

Paul Fuller

Palm Desert

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During Bill Clinton’s presidency the Republicans continually cried that the reason we were having prosperity was that Clinton usurped the Republican economic philosophy.

What happened to that philosophy now that the Republicans have complete control of the economy?

Milton Finkel

North Hollywood

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The cut in income tax was not designed to stimulate a sagging economy. It was designed so that large corporations could diminish their work forces and dispose of their inventories without paying a huge amount of taxes on their profits.

Leonard Fritsche

La Crescenta

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Interesting letters by people reacting to their tax rebate checks (Sept. 1). One woman bemoans her $160 and chides President Bush for destroying Social Security for the tax cut. The same day we read about Social Security checks going to the dead (“Audit Finds Benefits Going to Dead”). For 13 years! I suppose that’s George W’s fault also. Another individual writes about the needs of the mentally ill, the poor and the general infrastructure. Yet no complaints about a system that spends $2 trillion a year, of which a minimum 30% is pure waste.

Do the math; there is more than enough money collected by the government. Eliminate the waste, and there is more than enough to cover society’s needs.

Kevin Fitzpatrick

South Pasadena