All this talk about so-called Social Security reform is just a big farce being foisted onto the American people.

All sorts of spurious reasons have been advanced as to why Social Security is supposedly going broke. While the mentioned reasons have made some financial inroads into the fund, they are not the real reasons that it is happening. Those are just red herring reasons, intended to distract the public’s attention from what has really been happening to the fund for decades.

There is only one major reason why the fund is going broke: Congress has treated it as its own private cookie jar.

When that fund was first set up, it was fully intended to be a dedicated fund, inviolate and untouchable. Instead, Congress has repeatedly tapped into it to finance all sorts of expensive government programs that have absolutely nothing to do with Social Security.

Had it been left alone as intended, the fund would be solvent far into the future.

The only real reform needed for Social Security is for Congress to get its sneaky, cotton-pickin’ hands out of our national cookie jar, and keep them out – permanently.

Roland Fleming, Auburn