Ed Whitfield: “In yesterday's Washington Post and also in today's Washington Post there were two articles in which Vice President Gore…”

“In yesterday's Washington Post and also in today's Washington Post there were two articles in which Vice President Gore is scolding Governor Bush, candidate for president, on Social Security. In today's article, Vice President Gore in a speech yesterday to labor union members in Atlantic City said that Governor Bush had a secret plan to gut the Social Security program. Now, the vice president is quite effective in being an advocate for the politics of fear, and it is a shame that he would be using this opportunity to scare those most vulnerable in our society, and particularly those senior citizens who depend upon Social Security for their livelihood. So today I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about Social Security. The Social Security program began in 1936, and between 1936 and 1998, a period of 62 years, in about 47 of those 62 years there was a surplus in the Social Security account. In other words, there was more money coming in through the payroll tax than was being paid out to beneficiaries. During those 47 years of surpluses, the Democratic leadership controlled the Congress for about 95 percent of that time, and during that time in excess of $800 billion was spent by the government from that fund.”