The big lie
by Bill Worley

This last week I had lunch with a father and son at the Golden Ox in Kansas City. The very name conjures up visions of steaks and huge baked potatoes served direct from adjacent stockyards. Only the stockyards no longer exist. The Kansas City Strip Steaks are trucked in from Omaha or Emporia. In other words--the image is a lie.

At least at the Golden Ox in Kansas City, all you have to do to check it out is walk outside. There's a Gateway Computer plant where the pens and ramps of the stockyards used to be.

Now, in Washington these days, there's a lot of talk about lying. And, there's a lot of lying being done. The trick is to be able to see who's doing it, understand what they stand to gain, and figure out how important the lie is.

The Republicans seem hell-bent on capitalizing on catching President Clinton in a lie under oath-an impeachable offense, they say. Well, Clinton did have sexual contact with a White House intern seemingly determined on making it to the top. Did he have a "sexual relationship" with Monica? Obviously, it depends on how it's all defined.

Actually, I'll give this one to the Republicans. Small details to the contrary, Clinton was doing what he knew he shouldn't in the Oval Office, and he has pussy-footed around calling it what it was.

Now. Don't we all feel better? We caught the President in The Big Lie. Or did we? Is lying about sex, The Big Lie?

When I was growing up, there was a Senator from Wisconsin who engaged in "The Big Lie" in a much clearer way. Joe McCarthy boldly stated that over half the State Department and the United Army General Staff were at least "fellow travelers" with the Communist Conspiracy that was out to take over America. He knew it was a lie. Much of the American people suspected it was, but because he was so outrageous, even other Senators and Presidents, such as Truman and Eisenhower, hesitated to contradict his Big Lie. What happened to "Tailgunner Joe," as he was aptly nicknamed, was that his Big Lie ultimately came back and bit him. He overreached himself.

Now, you may think that I'm going to say that the Republican charges against Clinton are the current Big Lie. Not at all. As I've already said, the Republicans are right about Clinton lying. But then, on that point, who cares? We've known that fact for months, and we, the American people have indicated our concern with a big yawn.

No, the Really Big Lie [the Ed Sullivan variety] is one that Clinton and most Congressional Democrats promote with equal vigor as do 100% of the Republicans. The "Really Big Lie" is the statement that we have a "balanced budget."

The Democrats want to take credit for accomplishing this amazing feat while maintaining a healthy overall economy. The Republicans want to celebrate with several "well-earned" tax breaks for the upper income folks who pay their election costs.

The problem is that we haven't anymore balanced the Federal Budget than we have caught the President with his pants down [we only have his and her word for that!].

In 1986, there was great fear that the Social Security system was going to Hell in a handbasket. We were going to run out of money by the Year 2011 to pay the newly retiring baby boomers their retirement dividends.

So President Reagan stepped in [you remember the original Teflon President who engaged in the principle of "deniability" so he couldn't be saddled with selling arms to Iran in order to free the hostages, don't you?]. He and the Democratic leadership of the Congress worked out a compromise on Social Security. They raised the rate to 15% of everything that almost everybody made in salaries or wages. Of course, they installed an upper limit on this, so the wealthy who made more than $65,000 or so a year wouldn't have to contribute to Social Security once they reached the magic plateau.

Then President Ron and the Demos put Social Security "on budget."

The result of these two actions-raising the Social Security tax to 15% with no exemptions or deductions except for the top income people, and counting Social Security income toward the regular budget of the county-was the origin of The Really Big Lie.

It allowed the Republicans and Democrats to claim by 1998 that the impossible had happened-the U.S. government took in more revenues than it spent. That is the Big Lie in all its glory!

What's really happened is that in these prosperous economic times, every man, woman, and child pays 7.5% of their income from dollar one, matched by 7.5% of the same amount all the way up somewhere in the 60 thousands where it stops. The argument is that the wealthy making more than somewhere in the 60 thousands will never get that much money back from the system, so they shouldn't be taxed for it in the first place-that's the second Big Lie!

The wealthy get Medicare AND Social Security payments just like everybody else. They may have higher deductibles than those less fortunate, but when hospital bills more and more run into six figures, an increase in the deductible of a few dollars hardly means the wealthy are paying more for their health assistance. Plus, they get much higher Social Security payments received by the poor.

Back to the first Big Lie-and here's the Big Finish: Because Social Security income was planned to greatly exceed expenditures in the near term, supposedly to build up a surplus for the later greater outflow, it is only natural that overall government income exceeded outflow in the recently completed Federal fiscal year.

The problem is this: the money that was supposed to be building up for payments to the Baby-Boomers by 2011 is represented by IOUs placed in the Social Security "Trust Fund" by the U.S. Treasury. We haven't saved anything; the Congress and the President have cheerfully spent the Social Security excess to make it look like we have a "budget surplus."

To Clinton's credit, he hasn't sanctimoniously gone around Washington saying that since we have a surplus, we should cut taxes first. He has said we need to "fix Social Security" first.

But even he hasn't said that what we really need to do is to take Social Security "off budget" and to leave the Social Security "surplus" in the account or to lend [not give] it out, at interest, so that indeed that 15% of salaries and wages [up to the exemption amount] will increase like the savings account it was intended to be.

So there it is. Only in America do we tax the poor at a flat 15% rate for all of any wages they can make and give a tax break to wealthy making over $65,000 or so a year. And, only in America, to we take this tax money out of the "trust fund" so that we can spend it on arms, roads, or whatever Congress wants instead.

Those, folks, are the Really Big Lies of the late 20th Century in American government. Is anybody ready to impeach Clinton for participating in that Big Lie? Not on your life! The potential impeachers actually want to lower taxes even more for the more wealthy taxpayers [capital gains, etc.]. They buy The Big Lies even more than most.

And who do you think pointed this whole problem out at the lunch at the Golden Ox? It was the father of the pair with whom I ate. The son, about 10 years my senior, was so busy talking about Clinton's sin, that he couldn't see the magnitude of the Big Lies so ably visualized by his father.

You see how easy it is to see the little lies and miss the big ones?

Bill Worley did not have the Emporia Strip Steak at the Golden Ox. Instead he ordered the "Yankee Pot Roast" with an extra order of carrots. At least he had beef. The wise father with whom he dined had a turkey sandwich with Grey Poupon. What kind of a meal is that in the biggest steak restaurant in Kansas City?

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