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"Fixing
Social Security" - Just Another Fraud The President wishes to embark on a new program to fix Social Security by using 60% of the budget surplus being forecast over the next 10 years. The Republicans wish to avoid the surplus by granting a 10% tax cut. Both of these plans are a fraud on the U.S. Taxpayer. In this article, Part I of III, I will show examples of double-talk or deliberate lies being used by both parties and by our civil servants to disguise this charade. Believe me, I can't show all of them; they are far too numerous to count. In Part II, I will show how the so-called surplus is being generated by using the savings of the Social Security Trust Fund and 149 other trust funds to hide budget deficits, and to enhance projected minor surpluses. In Part III, I will give specific recommendations for actions to be taken to protect our current Social Security program and to restore honesty and integrity in financial reporting by our government. PART I In April of last year Congressmen Horn and Kucinich, a Democrat and a Republican, conducted a review of the Administration of the Social Security Program. The proceedings were viewed on C-SPAN. They interviewed three men associated with the Social Security Administration Management and the Social Security's Inspector Generals office. All questions were responded to with a rosy glow. As the program came to a conclusion, the two Congressmen assured the public that our Social Security program was well-run, that the $700 Billion in assets were properly invested and had earned an average of 9% interest since 1990. Further, Price-Waterhouse had just concluded an in-depth audit and pronounced the Social Security program to be in top notch condition. One could only wonder why the President, three months earlier, was stressing the need to fix Social Security. My letters to these people pointing out this glaring discrepancy were not answered. This is but one small incident in the giant Washington effort to obscure the facts regarding Social Security. However, it still makes you wonder how much Price-Waterhouse was paid to do their audit. Each year, by law, the Trustees of the OASDI Trust Funds (Social Security and Disability Insurance Trust Funds) are directed to report on the status of the trust funds and project the financial operation of the funds for the next 75 years. A forecast of conditions which might affect the economy and the growth of population for 75 years into the future is not a precise science. Therefore the Trustees make three estimates: a high cost, an intermediate cost and a low cost estimate. The three estimates must be broad enough to ensure that the projected program will fall somewhere within their extremes. You have all heard that under the High Cost estimate, the trust fund will go broke by 2022, and under the Intermediate estimate it will go broke by 2032. Have you heard anyone mention (except on this website and http://www.nationaldebt.com) that under the Low Cost estimate, the trust fund not only does NOT go broke, but accumulates $50.4 Trillion in assets? Why do our President and Congressmen not mention this? Because it is not the song they want to sing. They see some money which they would like to spend. More about that later. In the April 1998 Trustees Report, the trustees state that the combined OASDI Trust Funds, i.e., Social Security and Disability Insurance, (Note: The report states the two funds are legally separate, but then are they not illegally combined on almost every page of the report?) will have accumulated a total of $754 Billion by December 31, 1998. They report that the savings, which they call surplus funds, are invested in Special Treasury Securities of the government and that they are drawing interest from the government annually. This is false, and on Page 26 of their report they prove it is false. "Trust fund assets are generally invested in Special Treasury Securities so that the excess of cash receipts over expenditures are borrowed from the funds by the general fund of the Treasury and used to help meet various Federal outlays (Note: borrowed from the funds, the LAW says they are to be 'invested'..) Then it goes on to say, These securities are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, the same as any other public-debt obligations of the U. S. government." That statement is deliberately wrong! Normal Treasury securities, which are generally recognized as the safest investment in the world, become part of Debt Held by the Public. On the other hand no investor with any common sense would invest in these Special Treasury Securities. They cannot be bought or sold. They are simply a worthless IOU and they are NOT included in the debt Held by the Public. The government treats these special securities as an informal accounting record, nothing more. Continuing, they inform us, The assets of the trust funds can be redeemed at any time This statement is a deliberate distortion and is refuted in the very next paragraph: Ò-- during the next 15 years the (excess income) will result in substantial net cash flow to the general fund as they are borrowed from the (SSI) trust funds. Thereafter, this cash flow is expected to reverse. --- The accumulation and subsequent redemption of (SSI) trust fund assets has important economic and public policy implications that go well beyond the operation of the OASDI program itself. Discussion of these broader issues is not within the scope of this report So there is a substantial problem with getting our money back to the (SSI) trust fund when needed. And how convenient for our trustees! They have allowed the money to be improperly invested and now they don't want to be bothered by discussing the repercussions. They need to be fired, each and every one of them. First and foremost, the Special Treasury Securities are nothing more than a fancy IOU. The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress calls them just an IOU in their report on Trust Funds titled, Trust funds, How Many, How Big dated 1996. In the Congressional Budget Office Report: Economic and Budget Outlook: 2000 to 2009, dated January 1999, one month ago, on Page 12 of 18, it says, Ò--- participants in financial markets view trust fund holdings (Special Treasury Securities) as a bookkeeping entry - an intergovernmental IOU. Those holdings are, however, an indicator of federal commitments for future spending (Note that they do not refute the term IOU.) That federal commitment means more taxes for you the taxpayer. It means the assets of the trust fund are NOT properly invested - as required by law. It means that you, the taxpayer, have been paying double the amount of Social Security taxes since 1983 in order to build a trust fund for the future. It means that the assets of the trust fund have been wasted on government spending, while the Trustees have been repeatedly assuring us that the money is properly invested and earning good interest payments. It is all just part of a huge fraud on the public by our elected representatives of both parties. To my knowledge only Senator Hollings and former Congressman Livingston have spoken out against this fraud. Consider the paragraph on Page 13 of the same CBO report, The process (meaning the flow of cash from the trust fund) must be reversed when the time comes for a trust fund to draw down its reserves to pay benefits. ( draw down its reserves is CBO double-talk for trying to get back the money which the government has looted from the fund). The Treasury must repay (with interest) what it has borrowed from the trust fund and must raise the cash somewhere else. The government must either (1)boost taxes,(2) reduce other spending, (3) borrow more from the public, or if the budget is in surplus, (4)retire less debt Well, there are four choices. Guess which one they will chose! PART II The topic for Part II is to discuss how the trust fund assets are being misappropriated, used to disguise budget deficits and to project budget surpluses. First the misappropriation of assets. On January 29, 1998 Senator Hollings made a speech titled: STOP LOOTING THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND. It can be found in the Congressional Record on the Internet. In his speech he makes two key points: (1.) On Nov. 5, 1990 he carried a new bill to President Bush to sign into law forbidding the use of Social Security Trust Fund assets for annual budget outlays, or for calculating annual budget deficits or surpluses. (2.) The Social Security trust fund was placed off-budget by this bill. The reason for this was to prevent its use in the Unified Budget. (Unified Budget meant the combination of On-Budget expenses with Off-Budget savings to make the result look like a budget surplus.) In his speech Sen. Hollings called the Unified Budget a FRAUD! This law is being disregarded by every branch of our government. In mid-February at a Budget Hearing to discuss what to do with the surplus, Alan Greenspan was being asked his opinion. Sen. Hollings interrupted Greenspan to say, There is no budget surplus. The Social Security Trust Fund savings are being taken to cover up the deficit None of the other congressmen at the meeting took exception to Hollings statement. Greenspan, who surely is intimately familiar with this deception, and in my opinion may have actually started it in 1985, hemmed and hawed without being committed either way. Here is what Congressman Bill Archer, thinks of this law: "Re Tom's comments about the Law that forbids the use of a "Unified Budget" for reporting by the Gov't... I heard Rep. Bill Archer on TV say, offhandedly, that "the Law forbids using a Unified Budget, but they all do it anyway." (said with the smile of a Cheshire grinning cat). Archer (R-TX) is Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. When the House leadership laughs at the Law, it's easy to see why the others in Congress do likewise. That's why I say... "The solution to our country's problems lies N-O-T with either of the two major Parties... they A-R-E the problem!" -C. Morgan Cofer http://www.geocities.com/~cmcofer/ No wonder these guys couldn't impeach the President. They all seem to think that they are above the law. The concept of 'Rule By Law' is all but obsolete in this country. We need to get actively in support of term limits. The 'ruling class' in Congress has come to think that they are above the law. But until the people in our State of Alabama can get rid of our own 'baggage', we are in no condition to tell other States about their problems. Now back to the Budget Surplus: The President has announced that he can now forecast budget surpluses from 1998 through the year 2009 totaling around $2.7 Trillion. To make the picture even rosier, he forecasts a steady decline in Debt Held by the Public. The following chart reflects his annual forecasts for surpluses and the decline in debt, and is taken from the January 1999 CBO Report: Economic and Budget Outlook: 1998 - 2009.
The next chart will add a different perspective to these numbers. The annual surplus will become a 'cumulative' number, that is we will add each year's surplus to the prior surpluses starting with 1998, making the result more comparable to the numbers being used for the Public Debt:
Obviously, the cumulative annual surpluses have a very significant impact on the Debt Held by the Public. However, now let's add the National Debt to the chart:
Are you amazed at all of this $2.7 Trillion of surplus and yet the national debt hardly seems affected? Let's now add the Trust Fund Savings illegally 'BORROWED' by the government in this period: So, now can you guess where the surplus came from? And the difference between these two lines reflects actual annual deficits, or there would have been even greater 'surpluses' to brag about. Let me now show you a chart of TRUE deficits and surpluses, IF, and that is a huge 'IF', the government did not loot ANY money from the trust funds, and again this is for the period 1998 thru 2009. The details of this chart are taken from the Jan 1999 CBO Report Economic and Budget Outlook: 2000 to 2009, Table 2-4:
For these 12 years, if we add the deficits and surpluses together, the result is a deficit of $ -26 Billion. That is practically a balanced budget considering what we have generated in the past 50 years. Looking a little further into the future:
I have a chart taking this out to 2075, but then the small surpluses from 2005 to 2014 disappear. This one holds perspective quite well. At least enough to show you the per the Intermediate Estimate by the Social Security Trustee's, we are facing $28 Trillion in deficits between 2015 and 2040. Continuing out to 2075 the new deficits total $243 Trillion. So much for the President's happy thoughts about budget surpluses. Note: These deficits are strictly from Social Security, Disability Insurance and Medicare, per the Intermediate Estimate. They do not include deficits from the Federal Civilian Employees Retirement Trust Fund or the Military Retirement Trust Fund, nor from increased interest costs due to the new deficits, nor from any other line items of the Federal Budget. Now look at a similar chart , however this time using the deficits forecast by the Trustees from the Low Cost Estimate of their 1998 Report.
I held this chart on the same scale as the previous chart for easy comparison. This shows a significant decrease in deficits, which' if the trust fund were maintained per THE LAW, would NOT create an impact on the National Debt. The trust fund would be able to handle the expenses. As the Trustees forecast, the trust fund would have $50.8 Trillion in assets (money or Treasury Securities) by 2075. Our politicians KNOW this. It is no big secret. But they continue to loot the trust fund to make the budget look like it has a surplus. Then they can spend more on social welfare or a tax cut for Wall Street. How is the government specifically looting the money from the trust funds? The answer is found in the same CBO Report. The information is in this report but it is not that easy to pick out. You must skip around to find it. Table 4 - 8: Projections of Federal Interest Outlays shows Gross Interest for each of the report years. Below that is Interest Received by the Trust Funds (translated from government double-talk, that means interest OWED to the trust funds, because it is NOT really paid, just more IOU's), then below that Total (Net Interest), which equals gross Interest less interest not paid to the trust funds In the years 1998 through 2009 the amount of interest NOT paid to the trust funds goes from $114 Billion in 1998 to $223 Billion in 2009. Over the 12 year period $1.935 Trillion in interest due to the trust funds is NOT PAID! In Table 4 - 1: CBO Outlay Projections, the total planned annual expenditures by Line Item are listed. Looking down the page, opposite the title Net Interest, are shown the exact numbers as were in Table 4- 8. This confirms that no interest is being paid to the trust funds. In Table 2 - 4: Trust Fund Surpluses ( Savings, in my terminology, not surpluses) are shown the annual amounts of surpluses to be looted from each of the major trust funds Social Security is the largest trust fund, next is the Civilian Retirement Trust Fund, then Military Retirement, Medicare Parts A & B, the Highway Trust Fund and the Airport fund. Then the total amounts per year to be taken from the funds, ranging from $153 Billion in 1998 to $273 Billion in 2009, a total of $2.768 Trillion (which includes the Interest taken above). The next entry below the Trust Fund Total Surplus is the REAL TRUTH, but with another disguised title; Federal Funds Deficit or Surplus. This is the true, legal, On-Budget financial status projected for each year. For the 7 years, 1998 through 2004, the cumulative deficit equals $341 Billion. For the following years 5 years, 2005 through 2009, the cumulative surpluses are projected to be $316 Billion. Combining the totals, the deficit becomes $25 Billion (rounding numbers causes the difference from the $26 Billion above) for the 12 year period. Not a bad performance, but not good enough for politicians. They want to spend more money for their pet projects. So the next step is to - ILLEGALLY- add the trust fund surpluses to the on-budget figures producing an ILLEGAL Unified Budget with the following results: From 1998 through 2009 the budget surplus then totals $2.742 Trillion. These are the exact numbers which the President is quoting to us at every opportunity. Are you staggered by the size of this fraud? Are you aware that the President now says he wants to use 60% of this surplus to save Social Security? This would figure out to be $1.645 Trillion. That is less than the interest owed to the trust funds in this same period. Actually, just from Social Security in this period, the government would be looting $2 Trillion, so the net loss to the trust fund would be $355 Billion plus the $750 Billion previously taken prior to 1998, a total of $1.105 Trillion! However, even after returning the $1.6 Trillion to the Social Security Trust Fund, as the President plans, do you really believe that the government will stop looting the trust fund and papering IOU's all over it? I DON'T! And nobody has come forward to say that they plan to stop looting the funds. What is happening to the National Debt while all of this surplus is being generated? I know you understand that there are two parts to the National Debt: Debt Held by the Public and debt held by government accounts. In the first section are the true Treasury Securities. In the latter section are the IOU's I will show the years 1998 through 2009 from the COB Report Table 2 - 3: Projections of Federal Debt: (Note: Amounts below in Billions of Dollars)
Now we will see how this looks on a chart: (Note: This chart is for different information than the ones above which look so similar.)
For any single year the National Debt equals the total of the Debt Held by the Public and the Debt Held in Government Accounts. As the Debt Held by the Public goes down, the Debt Held by Government Accounts goes up. Can there be any doubt in your mind as to what is going on? Now let's look at this same information but as a 'layer-cake' chart:
Obviously, we just shifted debt from debt Held by the Public to debt Held by Government Accounts. (Replacing valid Treasury Securities with IOU's!) I am not making this up. This is from a report published by the CBO this January!! And all the while our President and our Congressmen are telling us that we are developing $2.742 Trillion in surpluses over the next 10 years. It is a shell game, folks, A HUGE FRAUD! The government: President Clinton and the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, are looting the trust funds, telling you it is a budget surplus, and fighting over how fast they can spend the money before we discover their mischief. You
may be skeptical of my interpretation of these reports. If so,
please
check them out yourself on the Internet: On Page 25 of the CBO report: Long Term Budgetary Pressures and Policy Options you will see that the CBO has some concern for our future. There are 5 charts, each of them saying the economy is going to become unsustainable at the peak of the baby-boomer retirement about 2030, unless we mend our ways. But they are basing this on the decreased debt Held by the Public If they had used the much higher Gross Federal Debt (the National Debt) numbers, the day of reckoning would be significantly sooner. Still, they (the CBO) are saying that we must NOT spend the surplus, as the President plans to do with 40% of it; or the Republicans plan to reduce the surplus with a 10% tax cut. Even if we save every penny of the so-called surplus, the CBO says on Page 67: "Indeed, none of the solutions to the nations long term budget problems will be easy, but ignoring these problems indefinitely is not a feasible option." Well, the President and the Congress are not ignoring the problems, they are busy hiding them! Now, our civil servants and military might like to think about this. YOUR retirement trust funds are being looted just as thoroughly as Social Security. There is only one difference: No one is talking about saving YOUR retirement trust funds. Did I get your attention? Your savings are in the 40% that Clinton plans to spend. Look it up in the above reports. PART III In the two prior articles we have discussed the fraud and double-talk surrounding the Social Security Trust Fund and the Budget Surplus. In this final article I will discuss my recommendations for correcting the problems with Social Security, the Budget, and truth in reporting. When I retired 6 years ago, I decided to attack the biggest problem facing our country. The National Debt.. After about 3 years of intense study, I found that The debt was not the real problem; The problem was Social Security and Medicare, and of The two, Medicare was by far The most dangerous to our economy. No politician in Washington wants to talk about it; AARP might not like them. So Social Security was being used by The politicians to deceive and distract The public from The real problem. After another year of continued study, I suddenly discovered The real problem was none of The above. The problem is lack of integrity in our civil servants, top to bottom, in defining The financial status of our government and in highlighting real problem areas. A problem cannot be solved until it is truthfully defined. We will come back to this later. You are familiar with The three estimates made annually for The Social Security Trust Fund. The High cost and Intermediate cost estimates go broke in 2022 and 2032 respectively. The Low Cost estimate is solvent through The 75 year forecasting period, and accumulates $50.4 Trillion in assets over that time period. A major factor in The three estimates which I have never heard addressed by our politicians is The basis for The estimates. We know that inflation factors are considered, annual economic growth percentages, fertility rates, numbers of people in critical age groups, etc. But we never see any analyses of these factors. I became concerned that The dominant factor in all The three estimates is The population forecast, and The estimates of numbers of people in The three main age groups: 'Under 20', '20 to 64', and '65 and older'. I cannot publish The 35 charts which I have made, but I can tell you that I do not agree with The projected numbers used in The Trustees Reports.
Would you like to use The Population chart to project your own estimate of The US Population in 2075? (To help you read The chart, The first '0' on The dateline is for 1800. Of course, The next one is 1900, then 2000, and finally The last is Year 2100.) Make your own projection of population for Year 2075, then I will show you what The Social Security trustees are using for their projection in The High, Intermediate and Low Cost Estimates. Did your number go off The chart? If you project The curve made by The actual figures, it must have gone above 500 Million. Perhaps abortion is having a greater effect than we might expect. O.K., here is what The Trustees report for 1998 shows:
The
High cost estimate starts at 273 million in 1995, increases until
2030,
then declines to a total population estimate by 2075 of 313 million,
The intermediate uses 378 million, and The low cost uses a population
of 474 million. By using The lower population estimate, i.e., The
High Cost Estimate, we find The baby-boomers retiring and The number
of workers severely declining. That is THE problem with The High
cost estimate. In The Intermediate cost estimate, The population
growth is more reasonable, but The distribution of population by
ages is questionable. Consider these numbers from The Trustees
Report for The High Cost Estimate: High Cost Est. In Millions of people
Now The Intermediate Cost Estimate:
And The Low Cost Estimate:
Note: In The High Cost estimate The worker/retiree ratio in 2075 is 1.7/ 1. In other words, less than 2 workers to support one retiree. So The high cost program goes broke first, followed shortly by The Intermediate cost program, and The Low cost program survives in good shape. It shows 3.4 workers for each retiree. Does anything look peculiar to you with these numbers? Now take a look at The chart for The High Cost Estimate:
Does it look reasonable that The working population will increase slightly, then decrease to less than The number of workers in year 2000? Does it look realistic to assume that The 'Under 20' will decrease from 80 million to 55 million? Meanwhile The retirees will increase from 35 to 95 million. I find these numbers to be rather unrealistic considering The number of annual immigrants, however, I do not consider myself to be a population expert. Let's take a look at The Intermediate Cost Estimate numbers for The Age Groups: It is apparent that The Worker population increases by about 45 Million; The Under 20 increases just slightly, and The retirees increases, but not excessively. I think we might say that The worker population might grow slightly, but it appears to be stagnant for 40 or so years. Now let's look at The Low Cost population distribution by ages: This chart says that our population will continue to grow at a somewhat normal annual rate, although well below The growth rate of The past 200 years. Percentage wise, The annual growth rate decreases each decade, but total numbers continue to increase. This is The basis for The Low Cost Estimate for The Social Security Program which NEVER goes broke in The next 75 years, but is the one which our clever politicians NEVER wish to discuss. And why is that? Because if they convince us to stay with this program, it will mean that they cannot do The things which The lobbyists want them to do. Clinton won't have billions to waste on his spending frenzy; and The Republicans can't please their Wall Street money-bags with another tax cut. On top of that they cannot use Social Security Trust Fund assets to say the budget is balanced, so they will have to get busy and balance the budget HONESTLY for a change. And that means they will have to solve the Medicare problem, and the Retirement trust fund problems for Military and Civil Servants. No, they won't accept this bitter pill without being dragged to the closet and thoroughly spanked first. Now,
think about this for a minute: It is important to note that all three estimates pay identical benefits to retirees. I do not think any reasonable business manager would look at the three estimates and fail to say, Forget the first two estimates, we are going to go with the Low Cost estimate, and we will MANAGE the program to meet its objectives. Certainly we do not need, or wish, to accumulate $50 Trillion in a trust fund. While there is potential for tax cuts downstream, we have the immediate problem that to date $750 Billion has been looted from the trust fund. That damage must be repaired, not only in the Social Security Trust Fund, but in other important trust funds, such as the Civil Servants Retirement Fund and the Military Retirement Fund. Therefore the 'management' must start NOW! We have to make an urgent effort to balance our federal budget without using trust fund assets. A good place to start is with the annual $75 billion in special tax breaks for big business. There is no question that many other tax loopholes can be closed. Perhaps we must have a small tax increase, as opposed to a 10% tax cut. Next we must invest the annual trust fund savings - properly. I suggest we start by using the savings to gradually buy back US Treasury Securities held by other countries. As recently as this past February, our stock market was in jitters about the possibility that the Japanese might dump their $1.5 Trillion in US Securities, thereby causing the price to fall, yields to increase, forcing up interest rates, and cutting business profits. This would cause the stock market to fall and could seriously disrupt our economy. We do not need that hanging over our heads. By buying back our Treasury Securities, eventually our total debt could be held by the trust funds, and the $100 Billion in annual interest payments, now going to Japan, could remain in our country and would aid in supporting a healthy economy. By gradually removing our treasury securities from the open market, when it comes time to turn them back into cash to pay benefits to retirees, we will have created a strong demand for them. Would you like to hear one way that your civil servants justify looting the trust funds? It is from the famous Economic and Budget Outlook which I have used throughout this analysis: Chapter 2; How Do We Pay Down the Debt: "By 2009, using the projected surpluses to increase spending or to cut taxes rather than to pay down the debt would boost annual interest payments by $123 Billion. Conversely, reducing debt in the near term would substantially decrease interest payments in the future, when spending on programs such as Social Security and Medicare is expected to soar with the retirement of the Baby-Boomers" How do you like that logic? For 16 years we have been paying into a program to build a trust fund to prepare for the Baby-Boomers retirement. Now that we are getting closer to the absolute need for that Trust Fund, they tell us that looting the savings to pay down the debt will save us money on interest payments for a few years. Let's suppose you might be a person who needs a good car to get to and from work everyday, but you don't like to pay the gasoline credit card bill every month. So you go out one morning and take a sledge hammer to your car and smash it to pieces. Then you run in and tell your wife, "Look, Honey, I have just destroyed the car and now we will save $100 a month in gasoline bills." How in hell does the CBO think they are going to find the money to finance the Social Security benefits for the retirees starting in 2015? By waving a magic wand? The only way they will do it is by creating NEW DEBT! Only now it will be an exploding National Debt. They won't be able to hide it by issuing tons of IOU's. Interest rates will explode along with the debt. BUT --- if we had used the Social Security Trust Fund assets, and other trust fund assets, to gradually buy back the already issued Treasury Securities, all of the current issue of interest payments would be going into the trust funds. People who normally like to have Treasury Securities in their portfolios will be anxious to buy some, but can't, which will create a demand. That means when we need to raise some money, there will be strong bidders for the securities. This will keep interest rates somewhat low, as opposed to exploding. If we stay on the path of the Low Cost Estimate, interest rates will be well under control, as will the National Debt. So what do we do about all of this mess? I suggest that the management of the Social Security Trust Fund, and perhaps other major trust funds be immediately taken away from political appointees, and be placed under a management team of impeccable businessmen, a Board of Directors with authority to make needed decisions. If funds are plentiful in one fiscal year, perhaps the Board might reduce contributions. On the other hand, if the fund were short of needed cash, perhaps Cola's might be trimmed, or benefit increases delayed, or retirement age raised, etc. These actions must be taken in order to restore solvency to the program. This is not a political football, it is a business problem, and that is the way it should be handled. Get Social Security out from under the Washington jungle and set it up in manner similar to the US Postal Service, or Railroads, but hopefully better managed. To get this started I suggest something similar to the Grace Commission of the early 1980's: a committee of highly respected businessmen willing to donate 2 or 3 years of their retirement, without pay, as many did during World War II. If you want a volunteer, I will be the first to apply. To correct the problem of civil servants publishing reports burdened with double-talk, I suggest a Watchdog Committee to review and reject unsatisfactory reports. (Supervisors and employees who publish double-talk trash will be disciplined with days off without pay, or fired.) Certainly, to some extent, this analysis used to be performed by the Newspapers. However, in our modern era of technology, most people now obtain their news and editorial information from the talking-screaming-heads on television or the Internet. In a world of 30 second bites, there is a serious lack of in-depth and impartial analysis. Moreover, with our government in its current state of disarray, I can not imagine who such a Committee should report to. I find the CBO, the OMB, the GAO, the Justice Dept., the Congress, and the President all have their own little axes to grind. Truth is something which is not of much interest to any of them - Republicans or Democrats. I am very sorry that I feel compelled to write such words, but the facts are that we have no integrity in government today. Look at John Kasich, the great advocate of a balanced budget in prior years. He surely is intimately familiar with the rip-off of the trust funds. Does he say a word against this fraud? No, not one! All he can say now is elect me President. "Sure, John, you bet!" While I think that the financial problems of our country can be solved IF there were some serious and determined action by the government, what good would come from that if we cannot solve the moral and ethical problems of our country. If we cannot trust our leaders and we cannot trust our people, then our real crisis is already upon us. (Why do I include 'our people' as being untrustworthy? You only need to look at the results of the Public Opinion Polls to draw that conclusion.) We desperately need a new leader, a person of intense integrity and vision. I see just one potential candidate, but this is not a political article. I am trying to be impartial and unbiased in expressing my opinion. (I also know that on occasion I have not been.) I wish each of you would search your conscience, look at each candidate regardless of party, listen closely to what is said, select your best candidate, not based upon the promises of 'goodies for everyone', but based upon doing what is best for our country. Then support him, or her, in every possible way. After all, "if our leaders would do what is best for our country, then in the long run, that is exactly what is best for us". (I owe that thought to Edmund Burke, the Great English Parliamentarian. And yes, I know, I modified it slightly.) If anyone has a better idea, I would be happy to hear what it is. Thomas H. Smith
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