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From the 1930’s until 1984 Social Security benefits were not taxed. Congress then started taxing Social Security benefits, literally a tax on a tax, to avoid having to directly vote to reduce benefits.
For many years, Congress collected Social Security payroll taxes at rates higher than the amount of money the Social Security System needed to pay current beneficiaries, forcing taxpayers to fund other temporary federal spending priorities. Congress in effect “borrows” the Social Security reserves and replaces them with an IOU. We and other taxpayers will pay these future IOU’s out of future general tax revenues as more Social Security beneficiaries become eligible, hardly a sound way to finance a Social Security “Trust” fund.
I oppose diverting funds from the Social Security “Trust” fund for other purposes.
The United States has agreements with approximately 21 countries to combine the government retirement benefits for persons who worked legally in the U.S. and the foreign country. These agreements are called “totalization” agreements. The Bush Administration is considering such an agreement with Mexico which could put hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of illegal Mexican workers and their dependents into the US Social Security System based on their alleged “earnings” using possibly false or even stolen Social Security numbers.
The US General Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, issued a highly critical report of this proposal in 2003.
I oppose the “Totalization Agreement” with Mexico which President Bush or any President could sign by an “executive agreement” with the President of Mexico simply by the stroke of a pen and without a formal treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate or even the agreement of both Houses of Congress. I would support legislation such as S.43 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.43:) introduced by Senator John Ensign (R-NV) to require any such “Totalization Agreements” must at least be voted on by the US Congress.
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