Washington has robbed Social Security fund

The Sept. 13 article by the Associated Press concerning the condition of the Social Security system makes it look like the system is broke. It is not; it has been robbed by the thugs in Washington.

If you have $2.5 trillion supposedly in a trust fund and an annual income of $638 billion, how can you say you are broke?

Just simple calculations of the figures in the article tell me that if Washington had left the money in a real trust, and say the trust earned just 5 percent interest and paid out $687 billion in benefits each year, using the article's figures, the trust fund would have covered the shortfall of the taxes collected and still have added $76 billion to the trust. The next year, using the same figures, all is paid and add another $79.8 billion to the trust. By 2014, the trust fund would grow to $2,83 trillion. This is what compounding interest can do.

But this is not going to happen because we have allowed politicians in Washington to rob us, then try to convince us we are broke. Make them put the money back with interest even if they have to cut their own non-Social Security pensions.

Larry L. Luther

Amana