Earl Morgan The Jersey Journal

October 1, 2010

Earl Morgan
The Jersey Journal
30 Journal Square
Jersey City, NJ 07306-4101

RE: “Tinkering around” with Social Security – some comments on your column of August 25, 2010

Mr. Morgan,

As an émigré from Hudson County – I’m from the good end of the county, Bayonne – I reach out to the Jersey Journal to check out the Irish sports pages, to see who was indicted, and to revel in the buffoonery that made/makes/will make Hudson County great.

Since no one I knew had died, since no one I knew had gotten jammed up with the Prosecutor I sought out for that staple of Hudson County nitwittedness, “balloon juice” fiats from flat lined ink stained wretches.

As soon as I read your column on why Social Security should not be “tinkered” with I knew I had struck the Mother Lode.

It is both a simple and inconvenient truth but facts are hard things. Fudging or forgetting them makes any argument stronger until it is thrust into the light of day.

Your history of Social Security is, and I’m trying to be charitable, lacking in facts.
Whether they were forgotten or misstated is another subject. Your major premise, that Republicans are responsible for everything bad from Pearl Harbor to leisure suits to disintermediation to the Asian tsunamis to Obama’s recent discovery of 7, or was it 8, new states, is undisturbed by facts.

Let the record show that it was a Republican from New Jersey, Robert Kean, who shaped the final legislation in the House and then got it passed. He was nationally acclaimed as “Mr. Social Security”.

Look it up.

As to “tinkering” with Social Security I suggest that Rube Goldberg on crack and steroids could not have done a better job.

It is truly said that much more can be stolen with a pen than with a gun. Social Security is example #1.

In 1964, and if memory serves Earl Warren was the only Republican in Washington, a bit of financial legerdemain happened with every one watching.

The moneys deducted from your paycheck, the exact amount of which was matched by your employer went not sent to the legendary lockbox of Social Security but; rather, to the operating account of the United States Treasury.

The word that appears in Federal indictments in re ERISA crimes is “commingling”.

Lyndon Johnson, with the help of an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, decided to fight a two front war.

One front was in Asia. It ended 9 years later with 58,000 names on a wall in Washington. At least it ended.

[Do you remember the campaign of 1964? It was said that if Goldwater had been elected this country would have 500,000 men in Vietnam and race riots. That was a long time ago. Who did win that election?]

The other was against poverty, a more insidious foe. It was fought in the Marion section of Jersey City. It was fought in Watts. It was fought in the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex [Are they still called “projects”?] in St. Louis. Parts of Detroit were, to borrow a phrase from Vietnam, destroyed in order to save it.

Having been fought for years longer than all the wars this country has been in, having surpassed the total time the Greek dustup called the Peloponnesian War lasted, it will take aim at the 100 Years War.

If 1964 is the base line year for statistics it can be safely said that none of the reasons for fighting the WOP has been made better. In fact, they are all worse. Billions and billions of dollars later and we find ourselves with a calendar that says it is 2010 but a reality that says it is 1963. The so called medicine that took a patient with a mild fever to critical condition to the ICU to a one way ticket to Lourdes to being fitted for a shroud appears not to be working. Any remedy that says we should double the dosage is offensive to Logic and ludicrous on its face.

It has been a war with no “exit strategy” save to quick step into the light from the oncoming train.

As to Social Security, once a year the really bright lads and lasses – and aren’t they always really bright? – the same type who say that we have to pass a bill to find out what’s in it, sit down and figure how much money they have clipped from Peter to give to an increasingly expectant Paul. A marker, a chit, an IOU is then issued from the Treasury to the trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund. They put this marker, which is now called an asset, into the legendary lock box. The Pied Piper then takes the long route to put the lockbox into the theft proof vault of the Bank of Oz. Honest. Look it up.

If that ain’t “tinkering” I don’t know what is.

Your complaint, that the Brothers get the ca-ca end of the stick when they die early, has much merit.

My solution is simple.

If someone gets his ticket punched before getting on the good ship Social Security he should, at the very least, get back the moneys he put into it. A strong case can be made for getting back the moneys his employer put into it. Absent the Feds, men with badges and guns, the Boss would have paid him that money. Besides, the widow could use the dough.

One last thing.

If it weren’t for the Republicans in the Senate none, none as in zip, zilch, nada of the major civil rights’ legislation would have been passed in its final form. You can look that one up also.





Kevin Smith




PS – Speaking of “tinkering”, how are the Jersey City schools doing? Specifically, how are the high schools doing? If Hudson County is still true to form Republicans have to get out of town by sundown. That means that the Democrats are in charge of everything. To Hell with National Merit Scholars! Dickinson High School and Snyder High School should be turning out Rhodes Scholars and Nobel Prize winners, right? Also, could you get me the newest edition of the Jackson Avenue Dream Book?