Fix Social Security and Medicare now
Froma Harrop’s “Conservatives switch to Plan B for killing Social Security" [Opinion, Nov. 28] is misleading the general public. Her statement that Social Security will be totally solvent until 2030 and it can be easily fixed is false and dead wrong. She states that the money in the Social Security Trust Fund was borrowed by the federal government and the Trust Fund was given interest bearing Treasury securities. This is correct.

Here is the rub. When the federal government has to provide cash to Social Security to cover the payout of seniors, it will have to sell the treasury securities on the open market. This is because we are running a yearly deficit of approximately $1.1 trillion and have a debt of $16 trillion.

When you add the sale of the securities needed for payment to Social Security to the current deficit and our huge $16 trillion debt, our federal government will be bankrupt. This is especially true if the Chinese and others stop buying our Treasury securities. And Harrop did not even consider our federal government’s problem with funding Medicare. We have to fix Social Security and Medicare now.

—Paul B. Smith, Mercer Island

All supporting Social Security
First let’s get this straight, pure and simple: This is a rebate of a portion of the amount that working folks pay into Social Security. Why should people in this day and age pay less into Social Security than millions have paid since it first began?

In my opinion, it should not have been put in place in the first place. Note that certain people in Congress are now calling to change the system before it gets into trouble (read shortage). So I hope they wake up and let this little tax expire.

— Lawrence Blank, Seattle