Bush In Battle of Wits With File Cabinet -- File Cabinet Wins
A week or so ago, Bush traveled to Parkersburg, West Virginia to stage a publicity stunt at the Office of Public Debt Accounting. There, he made a big show of peering into a filing cabinet containing the U.S. Treasury Securities that are held by the Social Security Trust Fund, reflecting the surplus in the amounts collected in Social Security taxes above the amounts paid out in Social Security benefits. The filing cabinet contains U.S. Treasury securities pledged to the Social Security Trust Fund in the amount of $1.7 trillion.
Bush, however, was not impressed. Mugging for the cameras, Bush feigned horror at his "discovery" of the contents of the filing cabinet. According to Bush, this supposedly proved that "There is no trust 'fund' -- just IOUs that I saw firsthand." Apparently Bush would have us believe that $1.7 trillion in U.S. Treasury Securities -- heretofore the most reliable investment known to humanity -- are "just IOUs" and of no value whatsoever.
When I first heard about Bush's publicity stunt, my reaction was, "I'm paying for this!" How much did it cost taxpayers for Bush to stage this stunt -- how many Secret Service agents and miscellaneous hangers-on were flown to West Virginia so that Bush could look at a filing cabinet? I had originally resolved to write a blog about this, but held off after the subject was pretty well covered in much of the media, including an excellent editorial in the New York Times. Nevertheless, the memory recurred on Friday when I wrote out my checks to the IRS. It pains me so much that I have to pay out one cent of my hard-earned money to support this bozo.
In order to earn his pay, Bush had to take an oath that he "will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Somebody ought to call his attention to Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which explicitly states, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law. . . shall not be questioned."
The contents of the filing cabinet in West Virginia are fully in accord with the dictates of the Constitution. That's more than can be said for Bush's Presidency.
Bush, however, was not impressed. Mugging for the cameras, Bush feigned horror at his "discovery" of the contents of the filing cabinet. According to Bush, this supposedly proved that "There is no trust 'fund' -- just IOUs that I saw firsthand." Apparently Bush would have us believe that $1.7 trillion in U.S. Treasury Securities -- heretofore the most reliable investment known to humanity -- are "just IOUs" and of no value whatsoever.
When I first heard about Bush's publicity stunt, my reaction was, "I'm paying for this!" How much did it cost taxpayers for Bush to stage this stunt -- how many Secret Service agents and miscellaneous hangers-on were flown to West Virginia so that Bush could look at a filing cabinet? I had originally resolved to write a blog about this, but held off after the subject was pretty well covered in much of the media, including an excellent editorial in the New York Times. Nevertheless, the memory recurred on Friday when I wrote out my checks to the IRS. It pains me so much that I have to pay out one cent of my hard-earned money to support this bozo.
In order to earn his pay, Bush had to take an oath that he "will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Somebody ought to call his attention to Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which explicitly states, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law. . . shall not be questioned."
The contents of the filing cabinet in West Virginia are fully in accord with the dictates of the Constitution. That's more than can be said for Bush's Presidency.
posted by democratic core at 9:36 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home