Amazon
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Category:
Political Science
Publisher: Ironwood Publications
ISBN-10: 0977085198
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 256
Copyright: 2010
ISBN-13: 9780977085194
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
"Smith...has written a scathing account of massive fraud on the part of our nation's leaders, who have plundered every cent of the Social Security Trust Fund surplus that was specifically earmarked for the retiremtnt of baby boomers."--Booklist
This is a new release of a book that was censored and pulled from the market in 2004 because it exposed the government’s ongoing misuse of Social Security funds. During an appearance on CNBC morning news, to respond to Alan Greenspan’s call for cuts in Social Security benefits, the author held the book in front of the camera and said, “Alan Greenspan should be ashamed of himself for what he is not telling the American people,” which did not set well with the Bush administration. Also, the AARP was opposed to the publication of this book. The author received a personal letter from AARP CEO, William Novelli, scolding him for daring to publicize the looting of Social Security. Novelli did not deny that the looting was taking place, but he was opposed to any action that would inform the public of the looting. There were many individuals, organizations, and government agencies that did not want the public to read this book, and a few months after the book’s release, the book mysteriously disappeared from bookstores throughout the nation, and was listed as “unavailable” by Amazon.com. The publisher refused to revert the publishing rights to the book back to the author for a period of three years, so the author’s voice was effectively silenced during the Bush privatization campaign.
For the past 25 years, the government has been diverting surplus Social Security revenue into the general fund and using it to fund tax cuts, wars, and other government programs. Every cent of the $2.6 trillion in surplus revenue, generated by the 1983 payroll tax hike, has been spent by the government on other programs, leaving the Social Security trust fund empty. Smith believes that the looting of Social Security is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated against the American people by their government, and he believes that, when the whole story comes out, it will result in a national scandal that will make Watergate pale by comparison. Every American needs to read this shocking book, which reveals government actions that are both a betrayal of the public trust and a violation of federal law.
Excerpt
The Book “they” Didn’t Want You to Read
This book was first published in 2004 by a New York publisher. The early reviews hinted at just how explosive the book and its content would be. In the words of the Boston Globe, “If you… have the stomach for a truly demoralizing read—you may wish to take up “The Looting of Social Security: How the Government Is Draining America’s Retirement Account,” by Allen W. Smith….With dismal clarity, Smith lays out the step-by-step history of how a national pension plan was transformed into an outright shakedown of working people….”
On the morning of February 26, 2004, I appeared on CNBC, as one of two invited guests, to respond to Greenspan’s assault on Social Security on the previous day. I held my book in front of the camera and said, as forcefully as I could, “Alan Greenspan should be ashamed of himself for what he is not telling the American people.”
Several weeks later, “The Looting of Social Security” mysteriously disappeared from bookstores throughout the country, and Amazon.com listed the book as “unavailable,” at a time when I knew with certainty that thousands of copies of the book were setting in a warehouse…
I tried to get the publishing rights to the book reverted back to me so I could publish the book elsewhere, but it took me three years to get the rights back…Remarkably, during the six years since “The Looting of Social Security” became unavailable, the story of the looting of the Social Security trust fund has still not been widely reported by the mainstream media. Readers will be just as shocked by the revelations of this book today, as they would have been if they had been given the opportunity to read the book six years ago.
One major journalist has come to see the Social Security scam clearly. He is Allan Sloan, Fortune’s Senior Editor at Large. In his August 10, 2010 Washington Post column, Allan Sloan quoted me and referred to my 2009 book, “THE BIG LIE: How Our Government Hoodwinked the Public, Emptied the Social Security Trust Fund and caused The Great Economic Collapse.” Once Sloan broke the ice, he was followed by other journalists. Excerpts from the articles of three of those writers appear below:
“Doesn’t the Social Security trust fund cover that? No, silly. All those years of surplus in Social Security were recorded in a book entry dubbed the “trust fund, but the non-marketable special Treasury bonds that make up the fund don’t represent any assets that can be cashed in to pay benefits.”--Eric Schurenberg from CBS Money Watch, August 19, 2010
“Your payroll taxes go into a bottomless hole. So where did all that FICA money go? Down the drain of federal spending on everything. It’s certainly not sitting in an account waiting to pay your retirement benefits.”—Terry Savage, Chicago Sun-Times, September 6, 2010
“For more than 25 years, while working people were told that they were paying extra taxes to ensure their retirement security, that surplus tax revenue was actually being siphoned off to run general government operations…In reality, the trust fund contains government IOUs that taxpayers today and tomorrow will have to redeem probably through paying higher taxes” –Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 7, 2010
The fact is that $2.54 trillion of the Social Security surplus revenue has been diverted from the Social Security program and used for whatever unscrupulous politicians chose to spend it on. None of this money was saved, or invested in anything---From the book:
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