PUBLIC FORUM : FIX SOCIAL SECURITY BY TAKING IT OUT OF WASHINGTON'S HANDS.

The most important thing to me is to save Social Security so it will be there when I retire. I am 47 years old now and would like to retire when I am 65 years old and not a day older. Saving Social Security could be done overnight. It just needs to be completely taken away from the government, period. I cannot stress this point enough.

The Social Security surplus that we have right now should be put into this fund right now. Most of this money would be invested so that we would receive interest on the money we put in. Someone who only makes $30,000 per year and never gets a raise, earns 6 percent interest and works for 40 years would have over a million dollars in their account. That would amount to $60,000 per year for retirement income, not the $10,000 per year that people now get. There would be plenty in that to pay for medical care, too.

I believe that I am like most people in that I will be depending on Social Security as my sole source of retirement income. Social Security is my retirement plan and since the government isn't taking care of it for me then I wish they would stop stealing my money and let me take care of it myself.

- Kim M. Williams

Lancaster

So California public employees can retire at 55 with full benefits, while those of us in the private sector can look forward to working longer and harder to get less at retirement, all the while praying that we aren't downsized and have to spend our severance packages to pay the bills until we find another job.

Or, if we're really lucky, our companies will decide to switch over to a cash balance pension plan, and older, long-term workers can look forward to receiving a whole lot less at retirement.

Best of all, California will then fully tax our private pension incomes. Twenty-two states (not including California) provide full or partial tax exclusion of private pension income. Gray Davis has a great opportunity to show he can think outside the lines and support a state exclusion for private pension income.

- Linda Shaffer

Moorpark

The Social Security Administration's announcement of the increase in age qualification is no surprise. Most seniors agree that they are capable of waiting to retire. In fact, many of us have continued to work because we cannot afford to retire. I retired at 66 the first time, 77 the second time. Social Security was meant to be only one leg of a three-legged stool upon which a retired worker could rest.

Individual savings and pension are the other two. Sometimes it just takes a little longer. We are not the greedy geezers portrayed by the media. We are willing to delay retirement if that will ensure a continuation of Social Security insurance for our children and grandchildren.

We gain also because physical and mental activity ensures a longer and healthier life.

Now, if we can only get Congress and the president to stop that nasty earnings limitation tax that has been a thorn in the side of those of us who have to continue working.

In addition, legislation is needed to place the Social Security Trust Fund in a secure lock box to keep it away from the pork patrol.

- Jean T. Dewey

Quartz Hill

When it is stated that a new California law allows state employees to retire at 55 and enjoy the same pension benefits five years earlier than predecessors and that it's a good illustration of how out of sync public employee retirement systems are with private sector pensions and Social Security, it says to me that private businesses need to attempt to be able to offer as good a plan as the state offers, rather than try to refer to the public employee retirement systems in a negative way.

Why can the public employee retirement systems provide good quality? Is it because the funds in these retirement plans are being invested properly?

Why is the Social Security retirement age being increased from 65 to 67? Is it because federal spending of Social Security money is done in a negative way? Something for us to think about.

- Phyllis Smith

Santa Clarita 

Discussions in relation to a budget surplus have softened over these past few weeks. The acclaimed $66 billion surplus has been replaced by the $144 billion national debt increase. The fact is, there never was a surplus but the national debt continues to grow.

Despite much criticism, our government continues to use money out of the Social Security trust fund. During Ronald Reagan's administrations, there was a strong attempt made to shore up the Social Security account by substantially increasing the payroll tax. Our government continues to use this money for whatever the need.

Also in this period, a 5-cent gas tax was added for the purpose of repairing and building new highways. This increased the federal gas tax to 18.44 cents per gallon. This 5-cent increase was to be temporary. The projects it was designed for were completed a long time ago, but the 5-cent gas tax continues - and there has been some thought in regard to another.

In other areas, not publicized, where large tax tax incomes are made, include the enormous cigarette/tobacco tax and the huge income in the form of income from the 44 state lottery winners each and every week of the year. No wonder Uncle Sam encourages gambling.

It does require a very large amount of money to run our nation, but the steady and very large inflow of tax money should be enough. Apparently this is not the case because the national debt still stands at $5.6 trillion - and growing. Some time in the not-so-distant future there must come a day of reckoning and changes in the financial management of our great county or it will go down like any other business.

- Clarence W. Hayward

Los Angeles 

In 1982, I was forced to take early retirement due to shrinking enrollments at the college where I was a tenured professor. Now I am well past the age to receive Social Security, but circumstances make it impossible to retire on my retirement plan and Social Security.

So for the past 15 years I have been a 50-hour-a-week real estate agent. At age 70, I will receive my full benefits, which would definitely come in handy to meet my family's needs.

The workers who are much younger may have to build their own investment plans so they can avoid having to work full time well into their 70s.

Unfortunately, as a teacher most of my adult life, I never had much discretionary income to invest. And the investment opportunities that exist now did not exist in the 1950s and '60s.

- Sol Taylor

Sherman Oaks

Your Nov. 30 headline ``Gotta work longer'' should have said ``Slaves gotta work longer.'' The facts are clear; our elected, predatory, pandering politicians have not abolished slavery, they have lengthened the time of our involuntary servitude as federal taxpayers in order to keep them content in their standard of living on Capital Hill. They are pigs at the trough and we are the peon taxpayers supporting their lifestyles even if we gotta work additional years to sustain their standard of living.

If any incumbent politician is re-elected at the local, state or federal level, we are indeed a bunch of dumb sheep.

- Melvin Perlitsh

North Hills

Re ``Social Security rhetoric misleading'' (Nov 21):

The writer's article is the most misleading of all.

He states that no one can raid the Social Security Trust Fund because it ``only lends money to the rest of the government.'' He further states that the government bonds purchased with the trust fund money will be repaid with interest.

The writer is either terribly naive or deliberately spreading propaganda from his ultraliberal think tank. Who does he think pays off those bonds? Our taxes pay off all government bonds. The government does not make any money.

First, we pay Social Security taxes, which our government spends (or gives away, such as Clinton's latest proposals), then we are taxed again to pay off the bonds, which were our own to begin with. It amounts to double taxation (without interest) for the same purpose.

Would you lend someone money to pay you back for money you loaned in the first place?

It has been said ``those who can, do; those who can't, teach.'' To that I would add ``those who can't do either - pretend to be thinkers.''

- William Krambo

Tujunga

Retirees played by the rules that were set up by the federal government and contributed to Social Security and Medicare.

Over the years, inflation, increase in health care costs, and increases in federal, state and city taxes have made it almost impossible to save toward retirement.

Social Security and Medicare would not be in the shape they are in today if our elected officials would have invested the money. No, instead they used this money for other things.

When the government was shut down with no budget, guess what retirement fund paid the bills?

I am a health care worker and I do know that families came together to give support in a crisis. How can a retiree impose on his children if these children are struggling to make ends meet? A loving parent would not do that.

My question is: How can you expect someone who has worked on a job 30 years or more to keep working? Do they want these poor souls to be carried off the job and have never enjoyed their old age? Give them a break.

The public should follow their elected officials' careers to make sure that they are being represented and if they are not, then elect some who will.

- Brynie Brackin

Pacoima

Let me get this straight. The Daily News is upset because the retirement system I pay into, Public Employees Retirement System, is well managed, hence funded, and has been able to lower the retirement age for its participants. Instead of knocking something, in government I might add, that is working the way it should, let's use it as a model to rebuild the Social Security system so everyone can benefit from a well-managed retirement system.

- Paul Morgan 

Chatsworth

Senior citizens worked hard their entire lives, seeing large chunks of their paychecks go to taxes. The fat cat-hired help in Washington - senators and congressmen - have helped themselves to large amounts of tax dollars to create for themselves and their families a health benefits package that includes everything with a capital E. Even if prescription medication were not included, these folks, with their six- and seven-figure incomes and retirement money, could very easily afford whatever medicine they needed, and still have lots of cash left over for the necessities of life.

Meanwhile, the people back home who hired them, retired and in their golden years, must choose between taking their medicine, eating or paying their rent because many seniors cannot afford all three. And now that the Washington, D.C., bureaucracy has made it clear that nothing will be done to change the situation, the pharmaceutical conglomerates have announced yet more price increases, especially on the medicines that senior citizens need most.

Not only won't the hired help in Washington do something to help their senior constituents get the medicine they so desperately need, but these hired help are also trying to make a federal law to stop physician-assisted suicide. I guess this means that the Christians in Washington don't want their elderly voters to die, but they don't want them to live without pain and in comfort either.

- Annie Caroline Schuler

West Hollywood 

The cost of living increases are not shared equitably. Depending on your amount received, some get more than others. Raises vary as well from city, state and federal jobs depending upon your union. The government should re-evaluate the so-called public assistance program. Periodically check the system for the abusers. When welfare recipients live better than those on a fixed income, something is terribly wrong. Where is the fairness?

It's unfortunate that the government takes on the responsibility for the people who choose that lifestyle, while the rest of us pay for it. Even those of us on fixed incomes called Social Security.

- Marge Carosa

Littlerock

President Reagan did not think about the people who would need Social Security benefits to survive if for some reason they were no longer employed. I would still be working had it not been for a reorganization in the company I had worked at for 18 years. I am 57 years old and collect a meager retirement. Was I prepared for retirement? No. Was I depending on Social Security at 62? Yes, to a certain extent.

How do we salvage the Social Security system? First of all, we remove all the people who have come here from other countries and are receiving benefits even though they never worked a day of their lives in this country. This is something I have first-hand knowledge of. I worked with a woman from India and a man from Guatemala whose mothers are on Social Security. The big joke is that most of their time is spent in their birth countries.

Let's also look at all of the people who are medically or mentally unable to work. This is something I also have first hand-knowledge to. When someone can have a sizable savings account being on Social Security, it is obvious there is an income coming in from another source.

Let's also look at who is receiving survivor benefits. A lot can be done - but I'm sure nothing ever will be done.

- Angelina M. Felshaw

Mission Hills

The only legitimate power we can give government are those rights we as individuals possess. If an individual cannot demand from his neighbors the fruits of their labor, neither can government. There are morally disturbing facts about the Social Security system we must address in our political discussions.

In 1916 an Italian immigrant named Charles Ponzi devised an investment scheme that paid large returns without any investments. Money from new investors was paid to old ones and the new ones were paid by newer ones yet. He made lots of money until he was sent to jail for fraud. Today the same would happen to any investment fund managers who did not fund their pension plans. The current Social Security system is simply a much larger Ponzi scheme.

Another disturbing case is that of the man who wanted to take his Social Security funds he accumulated in the United States back to his native country. The Supreme Court ruled in the case of Nestor vs. Fleming that individuals did not own their Social Security benefits. The Supreme Court said, ``To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of accrued property rights would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands.'' This despite the reassurance by President Roosevelt that ``We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions.'' We as citizens do not have that right.

The Cato Institute and others have demonstrated that the only moral and fair alternative is to privatize the system. An individual has no right to demand the fruit of another's labor. An individual has every right to own and dispose of the fruits of his labor.

- David Galinsky

Simi Valley