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The Fat Man's always dancing While the Poor Thin Man plays the band; Some views on the raid on Social Security

by Daniel Hines
Editor/Publisher
America's Seniors

During the election (2000), we published a Commentary saying that really, voters didn't have it too bad.  We suggested that all the candidates were men of integrity, boasting solid family backgrounds with a pedigree of public service.

We were wrong. 

The Bush Administration's agenda has been solidly big oil,  ala Dick Cheney.  The disenfranchisement of African-Americans in the Florida election is now well-documented.  The economy has turned South.  Like a spoiled child, we have withdrawn from the International community except when it serves the interests of big business. 

And now, faced with a declining budget surplus, the Administration has decided that its largesse in supporting a $300 tax rebate justifies a $9 Billion raid on Social Security.

This is disingenuous at best.  It is scandalous at worst.   

Nearly two years ago, I interviewed a lady who was a representative of one of the nation's leading seniors' groups.  She and her organization were traveling the country to protest against 'pork' in the Federal Budget. 

But, they had also made a visit to the Social Security Administration to attempt to expose what they believed to be a fraud being committed against the American Public --and Seniors, in particular--by a stealth-like raid on the Social Security budget to generate the surplus in the first place.

Now, a new Administration apparently sees no reason to hide what has been an on-going attack against the principle of Social Security by many of its top 'compassionate conservatives' who claim that Social Security is not the safety net for millions of seniors (and the economy) that is claimed.

How strange this sounds coming from a political group that worries about the government taking tax dollars as the toll to support a variety of programs, and which has now apparently decided that the $300 rebate is proof of their good intentions and allows them to commit the very act that they deplore in others--namely the taking of funds that represent a good faith contract between those approaching retirement age, and
 utilizing the funds that that group has paid over the years,
to pay the tax rebates that even now are in our U.S. mail. 

A popular country song bemoans that the Fat (rich) man  is always dancing while the Thin (poor) man plays the band.  We're paying the band for a dance of rich men.