Froma Harrop’s column (“Republicans are a danger to Social Security,” The Columbian, Jan. 6) describes the danger to Social Security and Medicare presented by Republicans. The Republican plan to defund Social Security has a history. It starts with payments by baby boomers into Social Security. Those payments amounted to much more than Social Security was paying out, and the overpayments were used to buy Treasury bonds. This created a trust fund for the days when retiring baby boomers began collecting payments.
That day is now here and the baby boomers are being paid from the money they put in when they were in the workforce. It is a fiscal and moral obligation. However, the federal government runs a budget deficit, largely because presidents Reagan, Bush and Trump passed huge tax reductions for their corporate and wealthy supporters. That means that payments by Social Security must be funded by the government buying back the trust fund’s treasury bonds. Social Security and Medicare do not benefit the Republicans’ corporate and wealthy American supporters, so they want to reduce those payments.
They must not be allowed to succeed. And as Harrop points out, simply raising the earnings limit for deductions will prevent depletion of the trust fund.
