Social Security is not a government-provided pension. It is a trust fund supervised by the government and financed by a tax on workers. Not one red penny comes from the government. It is just the opposite; Social Security is financing the operation of the government, including waging needless wars.

The trust fund does not hold dollars and cents at present, but mountains of IOUs from the government. Social Security tax money goes into the treasury’s general fund so that when Social Security checks are mailed out each month, the government claims that it is a drain on government operating reserves. That is not so. What is paid out in Social Security checks is Social Security money, which should never have gone into the general fund in the first place, but into a separate Social Security trust fund.

Social Security will be solvent up to year 2042. With the right shoring up, it can go on indefinitely. This is more than you can say for a volatile stock market. So now, let’s hear from our Washington delegation as to where they stand on this issue so people will know how to vote next time.

Roger J. Jalbert, Lewiston