In Monday's paper, David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers discusses automatic federal budget cuts. It's a good article, but he makes the statement that "big chunks of the budget are exempt, notably Social Security, Medicaid, veteran's benefits, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Pell grants and a host of other programs."

My questions is, since when is Social Security part of the budget? It isn't. Social Security has its own budget, its own funding, its own administration. It has nothing to do with the federal budget.

Ronald Reagan put it best when he said: "Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. Social Security is totally funded by the payroll tax levied on employer and employee. If you reduce the outgo of Social Security, that money would not go into the general fund to reduce the deficit. It would go into the Social Security Trust Fund. So Social Security has nothing to do with balancing a budget or erasing or growing the deficit."

That was true in 1984 when Reagan said it and it's still true today and its very dishonest of people like Lightman to be constantly trying to conflate Social Security with federal budget. I wonder why they insist on doing it.

Gary Nelson

Bellingham