Reply #22: by the original law, any excess collections had to be invested in US gov't

[Hannah Bell]

securities. But up until Reagan, collections were geared so as to produce about 1 years' excess -- which was also specified by the legislation, as "cushion". So the SS Trust Fund stayed around this level 1947-1982 (in constant dollars).

What Reagan/Greenspan did was jack up SS tax rates so as to produce rapidly increasing excess collections for 30 years -- so the Trust Fund grew to unprecedented levels, in constant dollars (& current dollars).

It was a stealth way to tax the working class more & borrow from them while reducing taxes at the top. Too bad people didn't catch on at the time -- it was billed as a way to "save" SS - same as this current proposed theft is.

Thirty years of propaganda will probably make people go along again, thinking it's a good thing. Even here at DU, supposedly an informed arena, so many people buy into the SS "crisis" & proposed remedies for it, which are, without exception, ways to steal more from the workers & give them less.