Personal accounts benefit everyone

To the editor:

Professor David Roberts let a key contradiction slip in his letter. He says that personal Social Security accounts would cause "budget problems that would force cuts in other government programs." Oops! If Congress hadn't been stealing our Social Security funds to spend on things other than Social Security for the past 30-plus years, those accounts wouldn't be problems now, would they? Those "other government programs" would have their own funding, wouldn't they?

Not only will these personal accounts benefit the financial-services industry, they will also benefit painters, waitresses, factory workers, truck drivers and all other persons under 40 who use them. We also are major Bush supporters, and we helped elect him. Those of us under 40 are now having over 12 percent of our income confiscated, then stolen, for our Social Security that we will never get to collect. It will be distributed to the self-absorbed, Gimmee! Gimmee! AARP card-carrying baby boomers and will be gone forever unless something major is done soon.

Roberts should stick to accounting and let economics professors deal with economic problems and public relations professionals do the political spinning. On the other hand, if he actually had an original idea on fixing the problem instead of whining about someone else's solution, that might be helpful.

JOHN MITCHELL, Jackson