First tax increase of 2017 announced

[Ackmed]

Poor people live shorter lives compared to upper middle class (six figures and up) and rich people so they collect for fewer years on average. Poor and middle class people also pay a far larger percentage of their income to social security than the rich do which more adversely effects their standard of living while they're paying in.

How do "poor" people pat more in to SS? The article I linked to shows that they don't. Yet get back a much higher percentage. And it's going to go up? Wtf

It's not my fault some people earn less. There is nothing wrong with earning less, say 40k and still providing for your family. I worked at Little Caesars in high school, could have just stayed there. But I applied myself and over the years got better and better jobs. Paying in far more, and getting back far less is hardly fair. As another member mentioned, I also pay more in taxes all around. Items I buy, houses, income tax. Last week was over $350. That's $500 between the two in a damn week.

 

[Jhhnn]

How do "poor" people pat more in to SS? The article I linked to shows that they don't. Yet get back a much higher percentage. And it's going to go up? Wtf

It's not my fault some people earn less. There is nothing wrong with earning less, say 40k and still providing for your family. I worked at Little Caesars in high school, could have just stayed there. But I applied myself and over the years got better and better jobs. Paying in far more, and getting back far less is hardly fair. As another member mentioned, I also pay more in taxes all around. Items I buy, houses, income tax. Last week was over $350. That's $500 between the two in a damn week.

Don't be obtuse. People whose income never exceeds the cutoff point pay a higher percentage of income into SS than those whose earned incomes are higher. Investment income escapes SS taxes entirely.

 

[Exterous]

Protip, chump:

There are these people called actuaries, who existed when SS was created, who knew god damn well about how insurance, risk, and savings plans worked.

Protip chump - the use of actuaries when creating SS doesn't prevent an increase in life expectancy from straining SS now.

The best part is when people who don't know a god damn fucking thing about SS attempt to wax philosophic about it.

Since the SSA itself points to rising life expectancy as a major issue the only reason you could claim its 'philosophic' is to ignore the experts

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It's important to keep the % of income the rich have to pay into SS lower than the share of income middle class Americans pay for reasons.

Do you mean "for other reasons?"

Somehow, the well-validated and accepted notion of "diminishing marginal propensity to consume" plays into that discussion -- a Keynesian notion that is just quite simply a factual explanation of human economic behavior.

One purpose we should accept as a role of government and collective action is the reduction of unnecessary risk. For instance, any rabid Rightie would agree that national defense expenditures reduce risk collectively. They have to buy in to the idea that social Security is a useful institution that has functioned well since its inception.

Reagan did something that cost me money in SS, suggesting that "the purpose of SS was re-distributional. Therefore, if you paid into a government retirement program in the career service, you should have your privately-earned SS benefits reduced."

So if I had an accumulated 15 years working in the "so-called private sector" paying payroll taxes, the benefits should be reduced because I had an additional 25 years in government service wherein I didn't pay payroll taxes. Everybody else can have a corporate retirement plan of various kinds, collect their full social security benefits up to the threshold. I get the shaft on several hundred dollars monthly because I was a civil servant.

But if the Reagan-era "Windfall Provisions Act" argument was correct, it's goose and gander. What you pay in as a prosperous income earner shouldn't mean that you get a benefit proportional to people under the threshold.

Because . . . . "it's redistributional," ya see.

 

[Jhhnn]

Because . . . . "it's redistributional," ya see.

It has to be that way for it to work at all. Otherwise senior low income servants of Capitalism would simply be disposable.

From a capitalist perspective, more and more of us become disposable every day.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It has to be that way for it to work at all. Otherwise senior low income servants of Capitalism would simply be disposable.

From a capitalist perspective, more and more of us become disposable every day.

We seldom disagree, do we, Jhhnn?

AFTERTHOUGHT: This refresh I've had on Windfall Provision Act has interacted with my morning caffeine again. I fully intend, when the physician declares me "terminal in one year," that if I'm able to drive and walk, I'll go up to Reagan's grave at night, drop a big, massive-gassive shitty-gritty smelly-jelly poopy-doopy on the headstone and stick a feather in it. As for the arrest, it won't matter -- I'll be terminal.

There are a lot of people these days I'd like to give a muscular slap in the face, and it's not because of a few hundred dollars in lost benefits.

 

[Jhhnn]

We seldom disagree, do we, Jhhnn?

AFTERTHOUGHT: This refresh I've had on Windfall Provision Act has interacted with my morning caffeine again. I fully intend, when the physician declares me "terminal in one year," that if I'm able to drive and walk, I'll go up to Reagan's grave at night, drop a big, massive-gassive shitty-gritty smelly-jelly poopy-doopy on the headstone and stick a feather in it. As for the arrest, it won't matter -- I'll be terminal.

There are a lot of people these days I'd like to give a muscular slap in the face, and it's not because of a few hundred dollars in lost benefits.

I just hope to live long enough to piss on Dick Cheney's grave even though I hate waiting in line...

I think the windfall provision act was written with regular working stiffs in mind, given that civil service pensions usually pay better than SS in general. As a fellow retiree, I'm just grateful for what I have. It's a pretty modest life, but nice. More people should have it so good.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I just hope to live long enough to piss on Dick Cheney's grave even though I hate waiting in line...

I think the windfall provision act was written with regular working stiffs in mind, given that civil service pensions usually pay better than SS in general. As a fellow retiree, I'm just grateful for what I have. It's a pretty modest life, but nice. More people should have it so good.

True to some extent there, but I'd made some observations. In my "business" as a fed, you would get 55% of your high-three year's average pay after 30 years service. When I returned to CA to reconnect with fellow UC alums, some had spent years working for this or that county with closer to 80%, and there is general acknowledgement that CAL-PERS provided excesses state-wide. There is a general longstanding myth about federal wages on the one hand; I can't argue with the GOP adherents about pensions in the state here.

Am I complaining? Like you, I can say I have it "well enough." I can put money in savings almost every month. That wasn't the issue, really. For the Windfall Provision Act, there had been talk in recent years of overturning that. No hopes now. It seemed to me a punitive measure to simply discourage people who had chosen "public" careers. You may remember Elliot Richardson. He had written in WSJ in the late '80s an article entitled "Why Not the Best?" or something similar. It was in answer to the RR administration's general behavior regarding the public service. The darker side of those years was described by an organizational psychologist named Douglas LaBier, "Modern Madness: The Hidden Link between Work and Emotional Conflict." Some 20 or 30 pages were given to the Reagan years and its management of the agencies.

Civil Service retirement is good enough. I just think, if I'm under the threshold we've been discussing, that I should get the benefits of 15 years payroll taxes that anyone else would be granted together with an equivalent pension through their career or employment. As for the state and county friends, they were allowed to pay payroll taxes, and got both their government pension and their social security. Further, one jurisdiction -- say, San Bernardino County -- would deny SS participation for a policeman, while Riverside County next door would allow it.

As for Cheney. Certain 'crimes" have no statute of limitations. I say "99 years in the electric chair." Note the hypocrisy and subterfuge about this type of thing. Obama was determined not to pursue anything punitive, but to move on. Somewhere, after the 2008 election, someone described it as "mild magnanimity." Contrast that with Trump's behavior. Clinton did nothing wrong, even for mistakes overblown for their significance. We heard the "Lock her up" mantra all year. After the election, ol' Trumpie-boy finally says he won't do it -- not because he "can't," but because he's such a warm and wonderful fuckstick of a human being.

Here's a piece of drivel to peruse:

Comparing Trump and Obama "in common"

This little propaganda piece is supposed to get people in the mood to "settle in," "get along" and "go along." See? They're alike!

 

[Jhhnn]

Here's a piece of drivel to peruse:

Comparing Trump and Obama "in common"

This little propaganda piece is supposed to get people in the mood to "settle in," "get along" and "go along." See? They're alike!

That is a magnificent bit of drivel.

Dunno if federal pensions are too small or if the law allows too much for some other govt workers. Maybe a little bit of both. I confess to being on the other side of that divide having a Union pension from a govt agency & SS as well.

The problem with the current formulation of SS funding is that income has shifted radically to the top & towards investment rather than earned income. Back when the contributions cap was set at the 90th percentile a much larger share of national income went to the lower 90% than today. That shift starves SS of funding.