Cox Won’t Help Social Security

* Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) writes in his March 5 Orange County Voices column, “For decades, Washington has spent Social Security taxes on other government programs rather than setting them aside for the future.”

What does he mean by setting aside? Put the dollar bills in a warehouse or buy gold and store it in Fort Knox?

Does he think that his government pension is stored in a drawer on Capitol Hill with his name on it? Of course not.

The surplus funds are used by the government against a competitive interest rate instead of borrowing on the open market.

Around 2014 these funds will be used to cover the deficit until 2034 as it now stands. President Clinton’s approach to help the long-term problem does help. Cox’s vague and unclear “crediting each worker’s Social Security taxes to his or her own account” threatens the future payments of promised benefits. A. MOOIWEER

Costa Mesa

* We need to ask why the politicians who seek to “save Social Security” by privatization are of the same political party that not too long ago denounced this most efficient income maintenance program in world history as un-American “welfare state socialism.”

Now Republicans like Cox assure us they are out to “protect” Social Security as they resort to unreliable, long-term pessimistic projections to indicate catastrophe.

At the same time, of course, they are scoring ideological points and delighting their Wall Street brokerage friends--friends who have fortunes to be made if they can get their greedy hands on some of the billions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund.

JUNE MAGUIRE

Mission Viejo