Letter: “Saving” Social Security turned into tax opportunity

Thursday, June 25, 1998 | 11:44 a.m.

The Social Security act, as first conceived, established a fund designated for Social Security. That never happened. Washington, D.C., saw this wonderful river of money, a river as large as the Mississippi, the Colorado, and the Amazon combined. That money created a spending frenzy that persists to this day. What we have is a tax. Plain and simple. No fund was ever established, nor will it ever be.

Clinton is now calling for "day care" and the nation is applauding. A panel of experts has been appointed. Their mission: "Save Social Security." Their real mission: Raise the Tax.

This panel is saying we must work until age 70 before they will pay the full amount of Social Security.

We are now paying 12.6 percent of every paycheck to Social Security. They are not saying they will raise the amount, nor have they raised the yearly limit above $65,000, where it now stands.

They are not saying they will lower the "Baby Boomers' " checks exactly as they did in the "Notch Babies," but history promises they will.

Tell Congress to leave baby sitting to parents and community where it belongs. To efficiently run the entitlements they have already instituted. To clean up the ones that are more subject to fraud and mismanagement.

Last but not least, do not instigate more expensive and inefficient socialism from Washington. America is a democracy; let's try to keep it that way.

Margaret Wagner