2001-08-22 - 19:25 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

What Surplus ?

My mind wanders about this subject like a chicken bobbing about trying to figure out which mode of attack to use on a grain of corn.

Our nation is in debt zillions of dollars, a debt which grows larger each year -- in the end OUR debt. I don't think anyone can back up an argument against that fact.

In my opinion, here I am trying to see the surplus Babushka keeps crowing about.

The experts keep talking about the crunch on Social Security when the baby boomers arrive at retirement age. The baby boomers are crying about the increase in taxes to keep us oldsters afloat. We oldsters retired under a certain system and most of us are too damn old to go out and get a part time or full time job to make ends meet. There is fear and I think justified fear that Social Security will soon be nibbled at and we oldsters expected to bite the bullet and live with it.

I see that the Doonesbury feather made a speech in Independence, Missouri swearing that, "Every dime that comes into Medicare will be spent on Medicare." But I suspect that soon the rules of the game will change to the detriment of those who will have no say.

He also sought to assure Americans that, "We've got enough money," to pay for his tax cuts, pay down more than $100 billion in public debt and boost spending on defense and education -- all with out dipping into Social Security reserves. (yeah right, and my fingernails are diamonds too.)

Later on in Sandra Sobieraj's article she quotes Karen Hughes, counselor to the president, who argued that the Bush administration had simply used the surplus in the Medicare Part A trust fund, which pays for senior's hospital stays, to cover the deficit in Medicare Part B, which pays for doctor visits. (Now I put the pea under this shell, make a few moves, and guess where the pea is now ?) Deficit in Medicare Part B ? I have read somewhere that in the physician establishment, many physicians now are not taking people as patients who are under Medicare. HMO's seem to be arranging lower coverage of those under Medicare too. Why is there a shortage in Medicare Part B ? Who goofed this time ? Robbing Peter to pay Paul, is that a viable way to run a rail road ?

Tax cut has been made, the checks are in the mail. I wonder if he is following in his Daddies footsteps with his, "Read my lips," broken promise and will figure some way or another to make it all smell like roses ? He said, "I know this: We're not going to raise the taxes on the people. I know this: that we're going to make sure additional spending doesn't cut into essential progrms like Social Security and Medicare." Again Yeah Right, we are going to make the rain fall up too..... Now I wonder just where and from which arm the blood will be drawn. Its a cinch knowing whose arm it will come from.

Looks to me as if they are going to shift and shuffle money back and forth in Washington until it disappears into various pork barrels, etc. Then, I wonder, when will come the sad announcement that due to, yadda, yadda, yadda we are going to have to get more taxes from Joe Broke, anyway that's how it looks to me.

Too many times have politicians claimed a surplus to gain their goal and then we found out there wasn't a surplus there -- just the spot full of nothing that was supposed to contain their brains.

We are and still will be gazillions of dollars in debt. Then, I get back to my original question, What Surplus ? . . . . .

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