(It's entirely possible that all of those first person plural pronouns should be first person singular ones... i.e., "I" instead of "we." But hey, maybe I'm not the only one. It's at least possible somebody else has the same problem, right?)

YOu seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Trust fund is. Let me explain: Until 1982, Social Security was a pay as you go system - money paid into it in any particular year was just sufficient to meet the costs of benefits being paid out that year. But the actuaries saw a problem with that system - the huge baby-boomer bulge. The taxes required to fund the benefits of baby-boomers would be too great a burden on the working population of that time. So, in 1983, Greenspan's Social Security reform commission created a solution - they nearly doubled the FICA tax to "pre-pay" some of the money for the baby-boomers' retirement benefits.

In effect, those of my generation have been paying extra - real money, out of our paychecks, just so that the next generation wouldn't be unduly burdened, at the same time that we were completely funding the previous generation's retirement benefits.

The "extra" that we paid? The "extra" that wasn't needed to fund current retirees' benefits? That's the "trust fund." We paid into it with real dollars. Then Reagan (and every President since) "borrowed" it. That's where your "IOUs" come from. We lent the government our retirement money, and now we're starting to ask the people who borrowed the money to begin paying it back.

Hence Baker's correct assertion that they are essentially advocating that the government "default" on the loan. That's exactly what they ARE advocating.

(Of course, this doesn't mean that they didn't plan to do so all along. William Greider of The Nation called the 1983 reform a "bait and switch scheme" here.)

Boomers pre-paid for our Social Security benefits, and it most certainly was "real money" when it came out of our paychecks. To not repay that money, our money, that the government borrowed to use for other purposes, is theft. It's no different than if you lent your neighbor money out of your 401k and then he refused to pay you back when it came time for you to retire.

But, maybe that's just me. The last 8 years have been really hard on my ability to assume good-faith motives to anything that Publicans do.

It possibly could be my dogs' house too, but they sure don't act like owners. The cat does, although he's a benevolent dictator. And thank Bast, it's paid off, so the bank's new "no mice" policy doesn't affect him.

But what do I know? I'm just sitting here in my cat's basement in my pj's...