Bush Fib- no. 6

In a new book entitled "The Looting of Social Security: How the Government is Draining America's Retirement Account," author Allen W. Smith notes that on March 3, 2001 President George W. Bush stated in a speech:

We’re going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus.

But, as indicated, in a press release for the book, Smith points out that Mr. Bush reneged on his promise not to raid the Social Security trust fund to pay for his big government schemes and tax cuts for the wealthy:

Bush never rescinded that pledge to the American people but he has consciously and systematically used the Social Security surplus as a giant slush fund to help pay for his huge tax cuts for the rich and the war in Iraq, among other things. By early 2007, the amount of money looted from the Social Security trust fund by the Bush administration had surpassed the $1 trillion mark, and Bush continued to loot, and spend, Social Security money at the rate of $500 million per day.

At least in a nationally televised news conference on 4/28/05, Bush came clean, sort of, on his lie. He actually admitted:

Our system is called pay as you go. You pay into the system through your payroll taxes and the government spends it. It spends the money on current retirees and with the money left over, it funds other programs. And all that’s left behind is file cabinets full of IOUs.

So there you have it. As a candidate and then once elected, pledge to save Social Security; then steal from it to destroy it; then claim the system is going broke and can be saved only with private accounts. A Bush lie, and an example of why government is too important to be left to the party which hates it.