For decades billionaire foundations and conservative politicians have been spreading the big lie that Social Security is broke. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote, “When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it.” The fact is that the U.S. Government has borrowed some $3 Trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund, money now owed by Uncle Sam to millions of working Americans. Social Security is only broke if Uncle Sam defaults on its debts to us. The debt to Social Security is less than 20 percent of the total U.S. Government’s debt. Most of the debt, $14.5 Trillion, is owed to other countries and financial institutions of the rich 1%. But today’s propaganda fuses together all Uncle Sam’s debt to create the big lie that Social Security is the greatest debt problem.  Democrats and Republicans have recently introduced the Social Security Commission Act of 2017, whose ultimate goal is to cut and privatize Social Security. Politicians have not only borrowed from Social Security to run the government, but 70 percent of the national debt has been borrowed from banks, financial institutions, corporations and rich individuals.

The politicians borrowed because instead of taxing the rich banks and corporations, they cut their taxes. As a result, workers taxes and Social Security payments provide almost 90 percent of the federal government’s revenues.

Over decades the politicians have allowed major corporations to escape paying billions in taxes, they have given subsidies in the billions to corporations and agribusiness, and they have allowed tax breaks for the oil and gas companies in the billions of dollars.

Albert Einstein’s comments about politicians was right on target when he wrote, “members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists….the consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged. The rich 1% who benefitted from the national debt must repay the debt now. Millions in the streets won Social Security and only Millions in motion can save it.

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Nayvin Gordon, is a Family Physician in California who has written many articles on health and politics.