Now that New York's crusading attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, has attacked wrongdoing in the mutual fund, investment banking and insurance industries, he should turn his attention to a financial fraud that dwarfs those he has exposed thus far–a scam that makes Enron's accounting scandal look like petty theft.
Mr. Spitzer should sue the federal government to recover the $1.8 trillion or so that Uncle Sam embezzled from our so-called Social Security "trust fund."
For years now, we've been paying way more in Social Security taxes than is needed to cover current benefits, and that fact won't change for at least a decade. Unfortunately, however, Al Gore never had a chance to create his "lock box" to secure the surplus for future benefit payments. Instead, the government has been "borrowing" this excess revenue to spend on general expenses and handing us IOUs in the form of Treasury bills in return.
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