Summer 2005
Another Letter from Congressman Hastert
I obtained the following letter from a senior citizen who wrote to Dennis Hastert several years ago, and I immediately noticed that the signature did not match the one on the letter that I had received. However, I did not post this letter for the purpose of questioning the authenticity of these signatures. Instead, I would like to draw attention to an excerpt from the letter itself.
“You may recall that in the early 1970s, the Social Security system was in danger of going bankrupt, due in large part to this error. As unpopular as it was at the time, Congress corrected the formula mistake in order to protect the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund.”
This is not the first time that the Social Security system has faced financing challenges. Instead of adopting a radical proposal for reform, Congress should once again act to protect the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund. Congress must now determine the best method for repaying the money that it has borrowed from the system, because this is the true crisis facing Social Security.
