By Marjorie Seavers, Federal Way resident

If you’re old enough to pay into the Social Security fund each and every payday — or if you’re a young person hoping to retire someday with the help of Social Security — whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican or a person who couldn’t give a wadded-up Kleenex for anything political, I have some information for you.

A few of you may be aware of these facts already, but I’ll be a huge majority of you are not aware, and you should be.

No matter how sheltered your life, it would be pretty hard not to have heard the repeated warnings from politicos, starting with George W. Bush and loyally repeated by our elected senators and representatives, about the questionable survival of Social Security. Oddly enough, every solution seems to be at the expense of “We the people.” They say we should get less money per month when we do retire, or we should pay in several more years before we do retire. Maybe we should just die more quickly and not hang around so long.

Here’s a change I like better. We should lock up our deposited funds. No senator or representative should be allowed to dip into our funds to pay for their favorite pork barrel project. And rest assured, they do dip. Quite generously, too, and it doesn’t have to be because of some emergency. How about the multimillion dollar bridge built in Alaska and leading to nowhere? Do any of you remember any news stories about that?

I’ll bet you thought the hard-earned money filched from your every paycheck was being put aside in some safe fund for your retirement. Not so! For years, our Congress members have been treating this money as their personal petty-cash fund, trading our money for worthless IOUs that somehow never get repaid. Gee, do you suppose that could be one of the reasons Social Security is in trouble?

Sadly enough, Congress can continue to steal from our senior citizens without repercussions as long as the money lasts. You know why? First of all, very few people know Congress is doing this, and if they did, there’s nothing to be done about it because there is no law on the books forbidding it. Unfortunately for us donors, it’s perfectly legal. Unethical is another matter that doesn’t seem to matter.

And, how about this? Our Congress members won’t go down the drain even if Social Security does. You know why? It seems members of Congress didn’t feel that people of their stature should be expected to get a long on the pittance we ordinary folks are supposed to retire on so, many years ago, they voted themselves a real sweetheart of a retirement plan. What a shame we don’t get to vote on a plan like that for ourselves. In a nutshell, if they retire after five or more years in office, they continue to draw up to 80 percent of their present salary until they die. This little perk they vote for themselves comes directly out of our general fund — our tax dollars at work!

I think we should throw anyone who robs our old people of their Social Security fund into prison, just like any other thief. We should jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement out from under members of Congress, and let them depend on Social Security like the rest of us. Then, sit back and watch the miraculous quick fix sure to come in the wake of such action.

Now that we know what’s going on, what shall we do? Beats me!

Expecting Congress to lock themselves out of our handy-dandy freebie fund and give up their own cushy retirement deal is rather like expecting Br’er Fox to keep our chickens safe and secure. Maybe if enough people know and holler about it — well, isn’t the chance worth a call or a stamp or two?

Let’s give it a try.

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