The Wilmington morning star., 1944-04-18
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
New York,-Arthur Atrneyer, chairman Of
the Social Security Board, would like few
words with you about the trust fund concern
ing which President Roosevelt and Senator
Barley went to the floor in their tangle over
the Presidents insulting veto of the tax bill
You may remember that Mr.. Roosevelt baWl
ed out Congress for refusing to raise the Social
Security tax so that he could have one billion
one hundred million dollars more for genera
going expenses. Senator Barley, in terrible
temper over the Presidents flippant crack
about the greedy and the needy, replied thai
the money raised by this tax was sacred
trust and that he would never vote to in
crease it just to provide the Treasury with
money to carry on the ordinary expenses Of
the government.
am primitive about such problems and
in the excitement Of the moment swung out
remains that, having borrowed and spent the
trust fund, leaving IOU's in its place, the
national government one day will have to tax
the workerO all over again to redeem the
IOU's and meet the pensions. But think
it is up to me to pass along Mr.. Altmeyer S
preamble is not intended to cramp his style
but just to introduce the subject so that you
will know what he is talking about. I doubt
that you will understand him but still he de-
serves his say.
He takes neither side in the spat between
the President and Mr. Barley, holding that
both were right which is double-j onted rea-
soning but simplicity ITSELF compared to most
discussions of subject as mystical and con-
troversal as religion.
Mr.. Altmeyer says, and we all know, that
the trust fund holds government obligations or
bonds which otherwise would be held by pri-
vate investors. Thus, the public debt in the
hands of private investors is just that much
less. Instead of paying private investors, the
government will pay the trust fund to cover
the cost of future benefits to individual bene-
ficiaries
The net result" Mr.. Altmeyer continues,
'is that future Congresses will not have to
levy as high taxes as they would otherwise
have to do if it were necessary for the
Federal government to pay private investors
for the government obligations held by the
fund and also have to pay the fund an equal
amount to. cover the cost OF future DenetltS
to individual beneficiaries.
I don't want to indulge in fly-catching or
heckling while Mr.. Altmeyer is doing his act
but I honesty don't understand what that
means. Perhaps you do
''Your charge that these government obi
cations are merely IOU's and that the fund
has been invested in debt, not security is
Just as invalid as applied to these insurance
,Jbjo oh krnu in
vesting the bulk of their current receipts in
government ob1igations,'' he continues.
''When you say, so, eventually the insured
toilers will be swindled of their original Social
Security payment of taxes you apparently
believe that the Social Security contributors
are being taxed twice for the same purpose.
The truth is that the Social Security contribu-
tors are taxed only to pay for their
benefits AS taxpayers, they may later also
be obliged to pay taxes to redeem govern
ment obligations issued to the trust fund. But
when they do SO, they are paying for the
cost of the war and not for Social Security
benefits, they would have had to pay these
taxes to cover the cost of the war whether
the bonds were sold to the trust fund or to
private investors''
This is exactly my argument. If this is to be
tax to pay for the war why not collect it as
a war tax, whether on pay rolls, sales or
whatever else? Why try to disguise it as a
Social Security tax and pretend that it is being
laid up for Social Security purposes? Why all
this monkey business about Social Security,
anyway?
And here is another little matter, a splinter
off the same subject, that I have not seen
mention of up to now
Most of the pay rolls of today are met by
the government, itself, so the government Is
paying both ends of the Social Security tax
on that proportion of the entire pay roll OF the
nation. And not only that but the contractor
figures Social Security as part of the cost
of his job and, ordinarily, charges III per
cent for acting as the governments tax col
lector. So the Treasury not only pays the
Social Security but on every billion dollars
spent for work takes loss OF two MIL
lion dollars in commissions paid to the con-
tractor for his trouble in handling the money