Let me remind you that what is referred to as the “Social Security Trust Fund” is really the combination of two trusts – the Federal Old Age & Survivors Insurance trust and the Federal Disability Insurance trust. Everyone talks of them as one because disability was added to Social Security payroll taxes in the Fifties.

Let me also remind you that a great many people for or against George W. Bush’s current plan to reform Social Security argue that the Social Security trust fund will sustain the supplemental retirement system until 2042 or 2053, depending on whether you believe President “weapons of mass destruction” Bush or the Congressional Budget Office.

What’s more, they argue that the Social Security trust fund will not be called upon to begin this sustaining until 2018 or 2020, again depending on whose estimate you accept. Therefore, the problems are rather distant and not a crisis.

On Friday, February 4th, Ether Zone published a great article by Dr. Roderick T. Beaman titled “The Disability Scam, golden opportunism” that is a must read for everyone. It’s about how some; mind you it’s only some doctors are providing somewhat shady examinations and reports for people trying to draw disability insurance that we all end up paying for.

What I would like to add to Dr. Beaman’s report is that there are also a great many lawyers in this country that are preying on the same game. We may even have more lawyers than we do doctors in our nation. We definitely have more than in the rest of the world combined.

You’ve all seen the ads on television, some of them local and some of them national ads from major law firms like Binder & Binder who claim to be the expert disability advocates. We’ve got plenty of local lawyers advertising in my home town, all of them promising to work hard to get people the disability coverage they deserve. Like Dr. Beaman, I too wish Michael Moore would look into this.

As anyone who has read my articles on Social Security should know by now, I keep a watchful eye on the major entitlement trust fund activity. Here’s what happened to the Federal Disability Insurance trust fund last year:

Notice that the trust was in the “red” eight of the twelve months of last year and would have ended the year with a negative balance if not for the two payments of annual “interest” against the previous year’s ending balance that the government simply hands it in the form of more nonmarketable bogus bonds, no actual money involved. All of this comes from the U.S. Treasury Monthly Reports and on my web site I show you how to follow it for yourself.

Obviously, at least part of the Social Security trust fund is already in trouble.