As I reach the twilight of my life, I am witnessing the worst economic disaster in my memory. Yet, instead of this nation coming together and changing the conservative economic policies of the past 30 years that brought us to this point, what I see is a nation divided as never before. We have a Senate that is completely inoperable due to the block votes of "no" regardless of what the bill is about. We have a national debt that has risen from less than a trillion dollars in 1980 to $3 trillion at the end of Reagan's presidency, and $11 trillion at the end of President Bush II. I watch as Social Security is being attacked instead of being fixed. For 30 years, the money going into it has been taken and an IOU has been left, just as has been done with pensions, instead of putting the money into the account where it is being spent. (Rick Nease / The Detroit Free Press) - Color illustration hands illegally double-dipping into the U.S. Social Security fund. We need to eliminate the cap on who pays into that account, which is now around $90,000. There should be no cap, since there's no limit on who can draw it. It's hard for me to believe we are all so ignorant. CHARLIE LOCKETT Reproduced by the Author's permission |
