Charles R. Nelson's Oct 29 letter complains that the Social Security Trust Fund has all been spent, and that taxpayers will have to pay for it twice. Nelson apparently does not understand banking.

When you put your money in the bank, the bank gives it to someone else who spends it. This is how money works. What you care about is that you get your money back when you need it, with the agreed upon interest. The people who spend your money borrow it from the bank and pay interest on it because they believe it is "worth it" to them.

In the case of the Social Security Trust Fund, the people who lent the money are not the same as the people who borrowed the money, and the people who will pay back the borrowed money are not the people who paid the "tax" in the first place.

The workers paid the tax (lent the money) so they could save enough for their retirement in a very safe place. The people who borrowed the money were in the first instance, "the United States of America," which presumably used the money to make the country stronger and richer while cutting taxes on "the rich."

The rich, who got their taxes cut, presumably invested their tax savings and made themselves, or their heirs, even richer, and can well afford to pay back the money they effectively borrowed.

This is all normal banking. It's unfortunate that Mr. Nelson does not understand it.

Dale Coberly

Corvallis