The Baby Boomers are by FAR the largest voting bloc and have the most political power. It certainly wasn't my generation that spent the money, oh and when did deficit spending even start to be a big deal? Lyndon B. Johnson, and he was a Democrat. It is unfair to ask my generation who hasn't been voting very long to pick up the additional costs. Fair is fair, you get your benefits and we get our private accounts. Compromise is required, not everyone gets their way, BBond.
The Baby Boomers are by FAR the largest voting bloc and have the most political power. It certainly wasn't my generation that spent the money, oh and when did deficit spending even start to be a big deal? Lyndon B. Johnson, and he was a Democrat. It is unfair to ask my generation who hasn't been voting very long to pick up the additional costs. Fair is fair, you get your benefits and we get our private accounts. Compromise is required, not everyone gets their way, BBond.
I'd like to see SS dismantled at sometime in the future as well. Evidently it is planned to be here 70 years from now, so it will even out live us.
There haven't been any indepedent studies, but you did get to see my thread. I'm pretty indepedent myself, I disagree with Bush a lot, and was very close to voting for Kerry. I don't think there has been adequate time, but I can't see how costs would be higher than the SS boondagle.
Well let me ask you this who benifited more from spending the trust fund baby boomer or bady boomers kids and grand kids. Answer bady boomers. Who is going to benifit most from repaying the trust fund? answer bady boomers. Who is going to have to repay the trust fund and get no benifit in doing so? answer bady boomers' children and grandchildren.
Tell me again how that isn't double dipping.
It's caled "Self Fulfilling Prophecy", BBond...
And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who really benefits from the tax reduction schemes of the last 25 years, charrison- it's those at the top, particularly those at the very, very top. The top 1% share of income has doubled, but their taxes haven't, and their share of wealth has grown at a similar pace... while those in the lower 50% have actually lost ground in a relative way...
http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincometable.html
And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who really benefits from the tax reduction schemes of the last 25 years, charrison- it's those at the top, particularly those at the very, very top. The top 1% share of income has doubled, but their taxes haven't, and their share of wealth has grown at a similar pace... while those in the lower 50% have actually lost ground in a relative way...
http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincometable.html
aCtually over the past 25% the burdon of taxes have shifted more to wealthly as more taxpayers have falled off the tax rolls.
Didn't even look, did you, Charrison? You've just got those pre-packaged talking points, post 'em as seems appropriate...
Explain then, if you will, how doubling their share of income from 8.5% in 1980 to 17% in 2001 while increasing their % of total tax contributions from 19% to only 33% over the same time period constitutes a "burden"... Their average rate declining from ~34% to ~27%...
Just think, with the Bush taxcuts accelerating that trend, we'll put a higher % of total income above the SS cap while we're at it, starving the system, and be reaching for that true capitalist utopia, a third world distribution of wealth and income... with no inheritance taxes whatsoever, no dividend or capital gains taxes, either... nothing to stand in their way of owning us all...
Explain then, if you will, how doubling their share of income from 8.5% in 1980 to 17% in 2001 while increasing their % of total tax contributions from 19% to only 33% over the same time period constitutes a "burden"... Their average rate declining from ~34% to ~27%...
Just think, with the Bush taxcuts accelerating that trend, we'll put a higher % of total income above the SS cap while we're at it, starving the system, and be reaching for that true capitalist utopia, a third world distribution of wealth and income... with no inheritance taxes whatsoever, no dividend or capital gains taxes, either... nothing to stand in their way of owning us all...
Originally posted by: SuperTool
Bush's approach to SS is the same as his approach to Iraq: If it's not broken, break it
:thumbsup::laugh:
Well the wealthy are paying a larger portion of the tax bill, while lower income people are being removed from the tax rolls. This is the truth.
yeah the folks below 50k are paying 5%..they are getting killed.. The shifts you are talking about are 1% or less.
But it proves the "wealthy" aren't paying a larger portion of the tax bill as you claimed. And your post isn't the truth.
Originally posted by: BBond
Originally posted by: Mill
Why should Bush use income taxes to pay SS?
Why did the federal government us Social Security taxes to balance the budget all these years?
If they had used the money for what it was intended for the system would stand on its own, no problem.
It's only fair that they pay SS back with one-third of Bush's irresponsible (first ever during "war" time) tax cuts.
Because of the law passed IIRC in 1939, that required the US Govt to buy T-Bonds with the surplus money.
Originally posted by: BBond
But it proves the "wealthy" aren't paying a larger portion of the tax bill as you claimed. And your post isn't the truth.
Their share has not radically changed and they still pay a very large portion of the tax bill. So it still is the truth.
From your post:
It is quite clear that under Bush their share has not become larger, it has become smaller. Therefore your statement is patently untrue.
According to your link, the 2 lowest quintiles had their share reduced. Te top 3 quintiles are above average, taking the burdon from the lower 2 quintiles. So yes, the wealthy are paying more and poor are paying less.
You can twist the data any way you like but you can't change the fact that 63.5% is less than 64.4%.
The top tax rate has gone down.
This is the truth.
Of course the top echelon pays the lion's share of taxes- they make the lion's share of income, yet their tax rate has gone down as their share has gone up.
Commonly used classifications actually obfuscate the situation wrt the extremely wealthy. The top 1% doesn't define them, at all, it includes a lot of people who are merely well off, who depend on their paychecks just like the rest of us. The truly wealthy are a much more elite group than that-
http://www.lcurve.org/
Huge amounts of income are concentrated in the top 0.33%, but they often pay no higher federal income tax % than people making a lot, lot less, the whole tax scheme actually giving those at the very top big breaks over the rest of us-
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00in400h.pdf
What that data tells us is that the top 400 incomes, averaging over $150M, paid no greater % in federal income taxes than a single standard deduction filer making ~$125K... only ~23% of income... that's 1200X income paying the same tax rate...
Those figures don't include the Bush cuts, either- I'd expect that those at the top pay a lot lower % today...
Without truly progressive tax rates, this process is accelerating, and the effects becoming more predatory than competitive-
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wealth_distribution1999.html
Not to mention the effect on politics, where those of extreme wealth can obviously afford to finance and effectively limit electability to candidates they choose, even if that severly limits the whole idea of egalitarian democracy... concentrated media ownership having the most profound effect of all.
Normal work/reward concepts don't apply at this income level- Neil Bush, for example, can obviously exploit his connections to completely avoid what the rest of us would consider work, and normal concepts of national loyalty and patriotism don't apply, either- others will bear the price of profit w/o regard to nation or race...
What does this have to do with SS? Current deficits in the general fund benefit only those at the very top, and threaten the solvency of the govt, something they apparently seek. Current deficits and debt maintenance threaten the ability of the govt to honor its obligations wrt SS and everything else, no matter what sort of flimflam is offered to hide this fact...
Commonly used classifications actually obfuscate the situation wrt the extremely wealthy. The top 1% doesn't define them, at all, it includes a lot of people who are merely well off, who depend on their paychecks just like the rest of us. The truly wealthy are a much more elite group than that-
http://www.lcurve.org/
Huge amounts of income are concentrated in the top 0.33%, but they often pay no higher federal income tax % than people making a lot, lot less, the whole tax scheme actually giving those at the very top big breaks over the rest of us-
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00in400h.pdf
What that data tells us is that the top 400 incomes, averaging over $150M, paid no greater % in federal income taxes than a single standard deduction filer making ~$125K... only ~23% of income... that's 1200X income paying the same tax rate...
Those figures don't include the Bush cuts, either- I'd expect that those at the top pay a lot lower % today...
Without truly progressive tax rates, this process is accelerating, and the effects becoming more predatory than competitive-
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wealth_distribution1999.html
Not to mention the effect on politics, where those of extreme wealth can obviously afford to finance and effectively limit electability to candidates they choose, even if that severly limits the whole idea of egalitarian democracy... concentrated media ownership having the most profound effect of all.
Normal work/reward concepts don't apply at this income level- Neil Bush, for example, can obviously exploit his connections to completely avoid what the rest of us would consider work, and normal concepts of national loyalty and patriotism don't apply, either- others will bear the price of profit w/o regard to nation or race...
What does this have to do with SS? Current deficits in the general fund benefit only those at the very top, and threaten the solvency of the govt, something they apparently seek. Current deficits and debt maintenance threaten the ability of the govt to honor its obligations wrt SS and everything else, no matter what sort of flimflam is offered to hide this fact...
Cerb
Elite Member
- Aug 26, 2000
- 17,484
- 33
- 86
No political changes to SS will be successful in any way, except completely getting rid of it.
Much like dealing with our environment, everything is done a on a short-term basis, to do good for the rich, and keep the rich well apart from the poor. To think anything else is to be mentally blind.
Much like dealing with our environment, everything is done a on a short-term basis, to do good for the rich, and keep the rich well apart from the poor. To think anything else is to be mentally blind.
"Today, wealth is more concentrated than at any point since the 1920s, when the richest 1% of the population owned over 40% of all private wealth. At that time, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned "We can either have democracy in this country or great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Link
Richest Cabinet in History Would Gain from Bush Tax Cuts
by Julian Borger in Washington
The Bush administration's generous tax-cut plans were put into perspective yesterday when it was reported that the new treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, earned more than $56m last year as chairman of Alcoa Inc, the giant aluminium corporation.
Mr O'Neill, much of whose income came from exercising share options, should feel at home in the Bush cabinet, which is by far the wealthiest in US history.
The cabinet is a veritable tycoons' club with seven of its members owning assets worth more than $10m (£6.8m). Eleven of the remaining 12 are millionaires. The pauper in their ranks is the agriculture secretary, Ann Veneman, whose property's minimum value is only $680,000, but then again under favourable conditions, her net worth could be as much as $2m.
The president has assets valued at $11m-$21m, including a sizeable Texas ranch. Much of that money was made while he was a manager and shareowner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, which benefited greatly from state funding of its stadium.
etc.
Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle
Presidential Campaigns Draw Differing Conclusions From Report
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A04
Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.
The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.
Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.
Etc.
Bush Tax Cut Unfair, Won't Help Economy
Why the "double taxation of dividend income" argument is utter HOGWASH
by Chris Hartman and David Martin
Revised June 6, 2003
The dismantling of 70 years of U.S. social progress continues apace with a tax cut that will further constrain the ability of the government to deliver the things Americans repeatedly say they want and need: affordable health care, a secure retirement, a clean environment, and a safe and fair workplace, among other things.
Etc.
I've posted several articles on Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. I read the following piece on Social Security in this morning's Star-Ledger. The facts are simple and just as the links I've posted and several posts above this point out, Bush's schemes are for the benefit of the very few at the cost of all the rest of us.
There is no crisis in Social Security. There are only very rich, very greedy people who can't stomach the thought that the rest of us might be able to enjoy a secure retirement with money they can't get their greedy hands on.
I really can't understand how anyone can defend this crime Bush is trying to perpetrate on American workers unless you're one of the very few who are in line to benefit from Bush's latest plan for economic disaster.
From NJ.com
Social Security chatter fails truth test
Monday, February 07, 2005
In the fog that surrounds the debate over Social Security, one fact stands out from all others: George W. Bush's plan to privatize part of the system will do nothing to remedy its projected long-term shortfall. Nada. No way.
An administration official briefing reporters last week admitted as much. And for a more independent assessment, there's the analysis last December by Goldman Sachs, the New York investment firm. It advised clients that it's "the switch to price indexing from wage indexing that restores Social Security to solvency, not the implementation of a personal saving account system."
Actually, the privatization plan, by taking money out of the annual benefit pool, would worsen the shortfall. But not to worry. Bush has a plan to cover privatization -- borrow $1 trillion to $2 trillion.
However, that would leave us with the gap still unplugged and with up to $2 trillion more debt. So how does Bush close the gap? By using the switch in calculating the annual benefit boost as spelled out in the Goldman Sachs analysis -- a switch from wage to price-based indexing. And since prices tend to rise less than wages, that would reduce the annual guaranteed benefit for each retiree.
Technically, Bush never explicitly claimed privatization -- now euphemized as "personal" counts -- would plug the gap. But that's disingenuous. Privatization was peddled to the public simultaneously with the fiction that Social Security is in "crisis" and going "bust." They were a matched set, the problem and the cure -- or at least they were meant to be seen as such.
And that's typical. For almost nothing about the Bush administration's characterization of Social Security or its proposed cure meets the strict truth test. Not the "crisis" or "bankruptcy" claims, the "ownership" promise, or Bush's assertion that "everything is on the table" when it comes to solutions.
For starters, there are the numbers the administration uses: Someone seems to have cooked the books.
Bush's "crisis" claims rest on the assertion that Social Security income will begin running short of annual benefit costs in 2018 and the system will go "bankrupt" in 2042. Over the next 75 years, Bush contends, it will face a shortfall of $10 trillion to $11 trillion. But that's not how the Social Security Trustees see it. They've estimated the shortfall at far less -- $3.7 trillion, or less than 1 percent of estimated Gross Domestic Product over the same period. (Actually, it's Bush's over-the-top tax cuts that will drain roughly $10 trillion, maybe more, in federal income over the period).
As for "bankruptcy" in 2042, outside studies have calculated that even with no change, the system would still be able to pay 70 percent to 80 percent of promised benefits at that date -- even as late as 2052 by one estimate.
Then there's the "everything on the table" claim. Don't buy it. Bush took pains in his State of the Union Message to take off the table the one proposal that would cure any shortfall -- more revenue. It could be done by raising the payroll tax rate that now finances the system or, even better and more equitably, by raising the ceiling (now $90,000) on the amount of income subject to the payroll levy. Some Republicans already have suggestedthe latter remedy.
Finally, privatization is being sold as a centerpiece of Bush's "ownership" society. It's voluntary, it's yours, you can do what you want with it, and the government can't touch it.
Well, not quite. Investments, it now appears, would be managed by government-appointed overseers and investment choices would be limited (wisely) to prevent high-stakes gambling in the market. Folks opting for the risk-or-reward gamble involved in private accounts would have to show earnings of more than 3 percent to beat the regular Social Security benefit. Anything less and they'd be net losers.
What happens to the amount up to 3 percent? The government keeps it to help finance the whole cockamamie operation.
All of which raises this question: Since privatization won't solve the problem, why has Bush put himself and Congress through this wringer?
Hard to say. History sheds a bit of light on the mystery, however. Republican conservative hostility to Social Security dates back to its birth 70 years ago. And while the program's success has muted the opposition, it has never buried it. It still lives in the fever swamps of the far right. Two decades ago, in a paper written for the libertarian Cato Institute, economists Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis proposed that opponents adopt a new approach to remaking Social Security in a conservative image, something they labeled, ironically, a "Leninist" strategy.
The trick, they argued, is to recruit outside forces not normally interested in Social Security by offering them a financial stake in change -- "the banks, insurance companies and other institutions that will gain. ... In doing so we will weaken the coalition for retaining or expanding the current system." And that Bush has succeeded in doing. Wall Street is salivating at the prospect of billions in payroll taxes that would be poured into stocks and bonds if Bush gets his way.
It's a comfort to know that at least some folks might be winners in the great Social Security grab.
John Farmer is The Star-Ledger's national political correspondent.
There is no crisis in Social Security. There are only very rich, very greedy people who can't stomach the thought that the rest of us might be able to enjoy a secure retirement with money they can't get their greedy hands on.
I really can't understand how anyone can defend this crime Bush is trying to perpetrate on American workers unless you're one of the very few who are in line to benefit from Bush's latest plan for economic disaster.
From NJ.com
Social Security chatter fails truth test
Monday, February 07, 2005
In the fog that surrounds the debate over Social Security, one fact stands out from all others: George W. Bush's plan to privatize part of the system will do nothing to remedy its projected long-term shortfall. Nada. No way.
An administration official briefing reporters last week admitted as much. And for a more independent assessment, there's the analysis last December by Goldman Sachs, the New York investment firm. It advised clients that it's "the switch to price indexing from wage indexing that restores Social Security to solvency, not the implementation of a personal saving account system."
Actually, the privatization plan, by taking money out of the annual benefit pool, would worsen the shortfall. But not to worry. Bush has a plan to cover privatization -- borrow $1 trillion to $2 trillion.
However, that would leave us with the gap still unplugged and with up to $2 trillion more debt. So how does Bush close the gap? By using the switch in calculating the annual benefit boost as spelled out in the Goldman Sachs analysis -- a switch from wage to price-based indexing. And since prices tend to rise less than wages, that would reduce the annual guaranteed benefit for each retiree.
Technically, Bush never explicitly claimed privatization -- now euphemized as "personal" counts -- would plug the gap. But that's disingenuous. Privatization was peddled to the public simultaneously with the fiction that Social Security is in "crisis" and going "bust." They were a matched set, the problem and the cure -- or at least they were meant to be seen as such.
And that's typical. For almost nothing about the Bush administration's characterization of Social Security or its proposed cure meets the strict truth test. Not the "crisis" or "bankruptcy" claims, the "ownership" promise, or Bush's assertion that "everything is on the table" when it comes to solutions.
For starters, there are the numbers the administration uses: Someone seems to have cooked the books.
Bush's "crisis" claims rest on the assertion that Social Security income will begin running short of annual benefit costs in 2018 and the system will go "bankrupt" in 2042. Over the next 75 years, Bush contends, it will face a shortfall of $10 trillion to $11 trillion. But that's not how the Social Security Trustees see it. They've estimated the shortfall at far less -- $3.7 trillion, or less than 1 percent of estimated Gross Domestic Product over the same period. (Actually, it's Bush's over-the-top tax cuts that will drain roughly $10 trillion, maybe more, in federal income over the period).
As for "bankruptcy" in 2042, outside studies have calculated that even with no change, the system would still be able to pay 70 percent to 80 percent of promised benefits at that date -- even as late as 2052 by one estimate.
Then there's the "everything on the table" claim. Don't buy it. Bush took pains in his State of the Union Message to take off the table the one proposal that would cure any shortfall -- more revenue. It could be done by raising the payroll tax rate that now finances the system or, even better and more equitably, by raising the ceiling (now $90,000) on the amount of income subject to the payroll levy. Some Republicans already have suggestedthe latter remedy.
Finally, privatization is being sold as a centerpiece of Bush's "ownership" society. It's voluntary, it's yours, you can do what you want with it, and the government can't touch it.
Well, not quite. Investments, it now appears, would be managed by government-appointed overseers and investment choices would be limited (wisely) to prevent high-stakes gambling in the market. Folks opting for the risk-or-reward gamble involved in private accounts would have to show earnings of more than 3 percent to beat the regular Social Security benefit. Anything less and they'd be net losers.
What happens to the amount up to 3 percent? The government keeps it to help finance the whole cockamamie operation.
All of which raises this question: Since privatization won't solve the problem, why has Bush put himself and Congress through this wringer?
Hard to say. History sheds a bit of light on the mystery, however. Republican conservative hostility to Social Security dates back to its birth 70 years ago. And while the program's success has muted the opposition, it has never buried it. It still lives in the fever swamps of the far right. Two decades ago, in a paper written for the libertarian Cato Institute, economists Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis proposed that opponents adopt a new approach to remaking Social Security in a conservative image, something they labeled, ironically, a "Leninist" strategy.
The trick, they argued, is to recruit outside forces not normally interested in Social Security by offering them a financial stake in change -- "the banks, insurance companies and other institutions that will gain. ... In doing so we will weaken the coalition for retaining or expanding the current system." And that Bush has succeeded in doing. Wall Street is salivating at the prospect of billions in payroll taxes that would be poured into stocks and bonds if Bush gets his way.
It's a comfort to know that at least some folks might be winners in the great Social Security grab.
John Farmer is The Star-Ledger's national political correspondent.
I have thought about social security and have the following take on it. The average Joe on the low end that needs social security the most will pay into social secutity his entire life. The system will suck a lot of his hard earned money right out the window. However, Joe-Rich-Guy may pay into social security for a while but he reacheas the social security cap and does not have to pay any more.
Why is this?
This cap is a benefit to the rich at the expense of the poor. Removing the Cap or at least increasing the Cap will help the system along. How much is not known, but every little bit helps.
I am for Social Security or retirement accounts for individuals. The main reason is just to shelter the money required to be set aside for each person. I am tired of Washington stealing the people's money for whatever reason they decide they need it. On Paper the Fed Govt owes the SS system millions that should be in a bank earning interest.
Why is this?
This cap is a benefit to the rich at the expense of the poor. Removing the Cap or at least increasing the Cap will help the system along. How much is not known, but every little bit helps.
I am for Social Security or retirement accounts for individuals. The main reason is just to shelter the money required to be set aside for each person. I am tired of Washington stealing the people's money for whatever reason they decide they need it. On Paper the Fed Govt owes the SS system millions that should be in a bank earning interest.
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: SuperTool
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: SuperTool
Bush's approach to SS is the same as his approach to Iraq: If it's not broken, break it
well SS is broken.
Only in a rightwinger's mind.
I am looking at least 25% reduced SS benefits when by the time I retire if we do nothing. It is broken.
Was clinton a right winger when he said the same things in 1998. Was reid a right winger in 1998 when he thought private accounts were a good idea, because of the coming funding problems?
yes and yes
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