Excerpt from Don't Blame the elderly Victims for the Looting of Social Security 
SF Examiner around 10/1/1995

I have a hardcopy of a wonderful article written by Gene Marine and published in the San Francisco Examiner on or around Oct 1, 1995. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate the author nor the article for permission to use on this web site so I want to paraphrase the information for you. 

Gene Marine notes in this article that he is tired of hearing about the Social Security shortfall and the accusations that the "geezers" as he puts it are at fault and are receiving  money from the Social Security trust fund that they don't need.  He notes that many of the boomers think that the money arriving at his door from the retirement fund really belongs to the boomers (monies taken from their hard-earned pay each payday). The author claims that this ideation is fueled by the "Limbaugh types urged on by Republican politicians."  Marine notes that is ideation is not exactly accurate and  asks if maybe the Boomers are being conned.

Here is his justification: 
Social Security was set up when he was a kid. The idea was to peal off some of his earnings, put them in an account and when he was old draw them back. He contributed according to what he made. Marie notes that rich people did not like this at the time, in the 1930's, and they don't like it today.  Because Social Security is so popular with middle-class America the rich, he notes, try to convince ordinary folks like you and me that they are being cheated out of hard earned cash.

 When the inflation of the 1970's hit the resistors of Social Security raised the suggestion that you and I should be outraged at the chunk of money taken out of our paychecks every payday.  It was hoped that not only would people  come to resent these regular contribution but also to believe that they would never see their money returned at retirement because of the huge deficits predicted for the trust find as the Boomers reached retirement age.

" Inflation didn't create a hole in the fund or wipe it out. And it did not wipe out the money put in by millions who died before they reached 65." Marine notes that President Johnson started the inflation during the Vietnam War, Carter did noting to stop it but it was Regan who turned it into a disaster.

Looking at government calculations, Marine notes that the Regan administration was running huge deficit spending for their Star Wars program.  Running huge deficits was very unpopular with the public so for  political purposes Regan had to make the annual deficit look smaller than it really was. He had to make it look like the government was taking in almost as much as it was spending..

What happened was that the administration threw the income from Social Security Trust Fund (the money taken out of our checks) and put it into the general fund . That made it look like the government was taking in more tax monies than they really were.  Money still had to be paid to beneficiaries of Social Security so the administration started screaming about unfair payments to the elderly as though they were responsible for the now lack of adequate Social Security funds in the trust account.

So now there is no Social Security "trust fund". The money isn't there. The Regan administration spent it on Star Wars, tax incentives for the rich, and bomb projects.

The money that was supposed to take care of us has been used by the government. The monies from the trust fund were used to make the Regan budget deficits look a little less horrible. It was money owed to each of us in our old age.