Emptying the Lockbox

When George Bush was on his ill-fated campaign to privatize Social Security in 2005 one of his campaign stunts was to visit the Office of Public Debt Accounting to find the collection of Treasury Securities that make up the Social Security trust fund.

During his visit Bush said that there was "There is no trust fund -- just IOUs." Other conservatives pointed out that the Social Security payroll taxes are collected, but spent by the government and that privatization was needed to strengthen Social Security.

One might think Bush would have thought more about why those hard-earned payroll taxes were not being saved. Instead this week Bush signed into law a $70 billion tax cut, which will only lead to increased deficits and a less solvent Social Security.

This comes only two weeks after the government released reports showing both Social Security and Medicare would start taking in less money than it spends earlier than previously projected.

Even with the Social Security Administration taking in more money than it spends, it still isn't enough to cover the GOP's drunken sailor spending habits so all the tax bill does is increase the national debt. Conservatives try to claim that tax cuts actually bring in more revenues but that has been discredited.

The Washington Post pointed out that even conservative economist dispute the claim, one saying that tax cuts only replace 22 percent of lost revenue in the first five years and 32 percent in the second five.

Conservatives also like to point out that taxes are predominately paid by the rich, without considering their share of income or factoring in payroll taxes. Even when one doesn't factor in payroll taxes, the conservative Tax Foundation's promotes government statistics that show only the very, very rich pay more than their share.

For instance the top 6-10% of tax payers receive 11.18% of income and pay 11.48% of taxes; the top 11-25% receive 22.5% of income and pay 18.04% of taxes; and the top 26-50% receive 21.15% of income and pay 12.6% of taxes.

So why are we mortgaging our future to make the very, very rich richer?