Highly inaccurate
News Flash to Bob F. Smith (Nov. 1 letter): Social Security stopped having a separate Trust Fund decades ago when Congress allowed its "surplus" to be exchanged for Treasury Bonds (a convenient way to make the budget look better) to be redeemed as needed, and Social Security has been using current collections to pay for current benefits for an equally long time.
As for "lowering contributions and increasing benefits," where has he been living? I have worked continuously for 40 years and the cap on how much of what we earn that is subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes has steadily gone up during that time as have the benefits.
My father passed away in 1979 and my mother, as his widow, collected in two years more than the total amount he had paid into Social Security in the preceding 40 years due to the increases in benefits tied to inflation. This is possible only by using current contributions to pay current benefits; to assert that this practice is something new and has somehow been caused by those currently in office is, to be kind, highly inaccurate.
Marlowe Bonner
Traverse City
