Hands off Social Security

Regarding the editorial "No Way to Balance," May 11: To suggest that Social Security be included in budget cutting is incomprehensible. Social Security does not come from general taxes, it is money paid by the employee and matched by the employer. It goes, or is supposed to go, into a trust fund for the benefit of retired people and only that.

To encourage our government to cut back on a fund which for years has been diverted into all kinds of programs for which it was never intended is not only irre- sponsible, it is criminal. Ruth Clark, Fort Bragg, Calif.

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