To the editor:

The Bush administration says the deficit for 2003 will run $455 billion, 25 percent more than the government’s tax revenue of $1.865 trillion. That’s in one year! Exclude the amount our government takes from Social Security, and the deficit balloons to $600 billion.

Republicans, who control both houses of Congress and the White House, say they are fiscal conservatives. What does that mean? From the evidence, a fiscal conservative is one who spends money without the funds to pay for it. It is one who believes the federal budget is like a large credit card account. A personal analogy: If I spent everything I earned, and I borrowed from my IRA (with a promise to myself to pay myself back someday), and I charged up my credit cards by an amount equal to one fourth of what I make, well I guess I could call myself a “fiscal conservative” too.

Unfortunately, our government’s raid of Social Security affects us all. After all, that is supposed to be set aside as retirement income. None of us can avoid paying it. Yet it is raided annually, so not only do we have a budget deficit, but we have an unfunded liability in Social Security and Medicare IOUs that total, according to the Concord Coalition, a staggering $24 trillion, an amount twice the size of our entire economy!

So give that Social Security and Medicare deduction from your paycheck a wet kiss goodbye. Cause you ain’t ever gonna see it again.

Donald Phipps,

Lawrence