Ohio congressman John Boehner’s recent interview in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review touched on all the red hot stones—health care, BP, Afghanistan, and financial reform legislation, which he likened to “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” That remark made the president hopping mad, and it got a lot of press. Boehner’s startling comments about Social Security—explicit and to the point—generated far less media excitement.
In the interview, Boehner announced that paying for the Afghanistan war will require reforming the entitlement system, a point his aides later said he did not make. He also favored increasing the retirement age to seventy for people who have at least twenty years to go until retirement; tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index instead of wage inflation, which gives a higher benefit than the CPI; and limiting payments to those who need them. Means-testing, in other words. The congressman explained:
We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we’re broke. If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you’re retired, why are we paying you at a time when we’re broke? We just need to be honest with people.
Indeed we do, and when it comes to Social Security, the MSM, where most Americans still get their news, have been MIA. You could almost say that Social Security has become the MSM’s third rail. For the most part, nobody wants to touch it.
In this case, along with the predictable blogs from the left and right, a sprinkling of MSM picked up Boehner’s comments—Fox News, USA Today, KMOV-TV in St. Louis, which offered viewers a poll to see what they thought of raising the retirement age, and some MSM political blogs, like The Swamp, published by the Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Company papers. There, blogger Mike Memoli briefly mentioned the proposal to raise the retirement age and went on to say “But the “ant” remark has been driving Democrats’ attacks.” In other words, Boehner’s comments about Social Security did not rise to the interest level of ants being nuked, at least in the minds of the media.
It has been this way all year, ever since Obama established his deficit commission in January, thus raising the stakes for Social Security. The MSM’s treatment of the program is all the more puzzling since any changes the commission brings forth will be far more important to most Americans than health reform ever was or will be. A vigorous public discussion has yet to take place, and the commentary so far has been framed mostly by one side of the issue—the deficit hawks, privatizers, and Peter G. Peterson acolytes who believe Social Security (and other entitlements) are causing the deficits. (Disclosure: Peterson is a CJR funder.) It’s eerily reminiscent of press coverage of health reform, which locked out any proposals other than the ones being pushed by Washington’s health care cognoscenti.
So far, framers of the Social Security narrative have focused on its role in federal budget deficits, not on whether Social Security monthly payments, which average about $1380 for a sixty-five-year-old retiring this year, assure an adequate retirement income; why so many Americans are taking benefits at age sixty-two, even though that might hurt them in the long run; or what happens to private 401(k) savings when stock market declines wipe out their value on the eve of retirement. The average amount in a 401(k) plan, fast becoming the bedrock of American retirement, is $71,000. That would yield a grand total of about $444 a month for a sixty-five-year-old man living in New York who annuitizes that sum this year. A woman would get about $411. That’s not much to live on.
A good story in the AARP Bulletin told of two people in their early sixties forced to take Social Security benefits before full benefits kicked in because they had lost their jobs and needed the money. A sixty-three-year-old woman named Jan Gissel said she was certain she couldn’t get another job so “I’m taking my Social Security, but I need more money than that to make it.” Sixty-one-year-old Steve Stanislowsky, whose retirement plans crumbled when he lost his job, will do the same. “I’m very worried about running out of money,” he said.
There has been little exploration of the secrecy that surrounds some of the deficit commission’s work. When Hillary Clinton held similarly secret meetings to craft her health care proposals in 1993-94, the press cried foul, and continued to do so when Clinton ran for president two years ago. The secrecy surrounding her work often passed for context in campaign stories. Even Alan Simpson’s derogatory comments about the “lesser people” didn’t make prime time, and vanished after a few days.
Instead of exploring these kinds of stories, or giving helpful primers on how Social Security really relates to the deficit and how different reform options will affect different people, the MSM have repeated the mantra of a broken system and simply passed along the notion that the system is bankrupt and broken, as the Tribune-Review did when it reported Boehner’s comments, or “projected to run out of money” as an otherwise reasonably good AP story did.
Another AP story, a business analysis, offered this dire prediction in the first two graphs: While may people don’t want to pay higher taxes or see benefit cuts, “the results of inaction on the steadily growing debt threat are even more costly: fundamental damage to the U.S. economy and a lower standard of living for future generations.” There was no mention how real people would fare under different options for making the minor fixes most experts will agree will keep the system in good shape well into the future, or of the real consequences that entitlement reform likely holds in store for them.
- 1
- 2
Interesting that you spent so much time on Boehner’s comments, a favorite for liberals to demagogue against, but the knuckle dragging right wing Ayn Rand devotee Steny Hoyer said pretty much the same thing a few weeks ago:
More than ever, it's possible to imagine a government with nothing left to spend on educating our children, on securing our borders, on conducting groundbreaking research. More than ever, it's possible to imagine a government of, by, and for interest payments and entitlements
Secondly, that $71,000 figure you cited for the “average” 401K (which you then extrapolated out to a monthly $411 based on a 65 year retirement age and an average life expectancy) is an “average” for all workers, not just those at or near retirement age. According to the Survey of Consumer Finances the “average” retirement savings (401K and IRA’s not including business value, home value and savings accounts) for an individual at or near retirement is $272,00 and the median is $100,000. So how can you sit there in your ivory tower and complain that advocates of entitlement reform (and yes, that is a euphemism for cuts and such) are being dishonest with the way they present information, when your use of the $71,000 “average” was about as misleading as it gets?
If I were to use your same methodology, that $411/month suddenly turns into about $1700/month (unless my math is bad, and I don’t to financial analysis so that’s a possibility). Not a ton of money, but if your house is paid off, it’s not bad.
And while you are jumping all of over Peterson and the press outlets with enough foresight to try and get in front of this runaway train while we still have some time to deal with it, you cite The New Deal 2.0 as level headed and serious experts on the other side of the issue. Do you really think an organizations that has made such asinine arguments like: we don’t have to run balanced budgets because we can print money and debt payments don’t matte because its all an accounting trick, deserves to be taken seriously?
Entitlement spending is both the largest portion of federal spending and the fastest growing. If we don’t deal with it and make some changes its going to collapse.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 8 Jul 2010 at 11:33 AM
I think the media and others should also take note that the reason why the 2 trillion dollar surplus consists of IOU's, as Alan Simpson once said, is because the surplus was put towards general expenditures which should have been paid by other revenues such as income taxes. Now why was that? Is it because expenditures rose so heavily that it overwhelmed revenues? Partially. The two wars and the post 9-11 stock market crash recessions did hurt revenues, but that's not solely responsible.
The tax cuts given to corporations (the AMT refund), the wealthy, the income from capital gains, and the cutting of IRS staff so that the wealthy were vastly more capable of defrauding the government and getting away with it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/business/23tax.html
killed general revenues. The government paid for these income tax cuts by taking payroll tax revenues.
So the fund now has a shortage, it has IOU's.
Those income taxes should never have been cut if the cuts weren't accounted for. Those weren't tax cuts, they were taxes deferred.
It's time to pay, and one of the major ways to pay is to raise, if not eliminate, the ceiling on payroll taxes. The rich got their money at the expense of an entitlement funded by the poor and middle's payroll. It's time to get that money back.
Bu the problem is the politicians and the media are not under 80,000 dollar people. They will not propose a solution that affects their welfare. They were trying to claim $250,000 dollars was "middle class" not long ago.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/01/cnns-kiran-chetry-spars-w_n_444600.html
The missing surplus is money stolen. It must be put back by the class who most benefited from the robbery.
After that, then maybe we can talk about "reforms".
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 8 Jul 2010 at 12:05 PM
Hi, I participated in the America Speaks forum and found it interesting, but not illuminating. I went in well prepared but anxious about the pre-publicity regarding the bias of the organizers, who asserted neutrality. But I felt frustrated by lengthy, complex briefing materials which were supplied too close to the date (I received the Options Workbook of 50 pp by email at lunchtime the day before the meeting). But the meeting turned out to be very light about even the basic concepts of how SS works (I anticipated having to fend off confusion, but it wasn't very challenging). And they did not even acknowledge the controversies about the meeting itself (despite the group of protesters outside the building) nor did they state clearly that their interpretation of SS weaknesses or strengths is itself controversial. So I learned almost nothing new but the table talk part was positive, very nice people. The strong showing of support for Single Payer was unexpected but was a highlight of the day (they picked it up on the instant polling almost right away). It was an encouraging contrast to last summer's town hall meetings about health reform which were run poorly, reflected badly on the country, and which disadvantaged the debate altogether. However, the America Speaks mtg itself was well organized and for that reason I support the concept of such forums in the future, despite the pitfalls. I feel certain that well-organized civic engagement events like that could have vastly improved the public debate about health reform, for example. And I wrote that in the opinion survey.
But I just learned a new factoid about retirement benefits that has me a little stunned: employers are allowed to factor Social Security benefits into their formulas for employer-provided pension plans. What(?!). It's called "Social Security Integration". My job has a pension plan that I do not understand, nor do I have much hope for its strength in the future. It's a curious object for fascination rather than a solid assurance of security. My sense is that it's a second, or even third, tier type of pension. But it is one, a somewhat rare benefit, and that has caused me to take it seriously enough to at least not leave the job until I'm more clear about its actual value because I will likely not tap into another pension plan in any other job after this one. But. As soon as I read about this SS Integration business, my radar went off and I feel certain that we're affected by it. But at this moment, there are few ways of knowing for sure. My co-workers have no idea, for example.
I wanted to mention that because it's not just Social Security that's confusing. People genuinely do not understand the basics about almost any form of compensation or benefits outside the bottom line of net on payday. They may as well announce retirement benefits on a scratch-off card the last day on the job.
This report: http://www.pensionrights.org/policy/agenda/Consumer%20Agenda%20Jan%2013%202009.pdf
From this group: http://www.pensionrights.org
B. Repeal Social Security integration.
Employer-provided retirement plans often account for Social Security in their benefit formulas --a practice known as integration -- thereby reducing pension benefits to account for employer contributions to Social Security. Pension benefit reductions due to integration make it more difficult for lower-income workers to attain retirement income security. The practice of Social Security integration whittles away the already precarious three-legged retirement stool by essentially melding Social Security with pension plans. The majority of the workers impacted by Social Security integration are lower-paid workers which are often women. Eliminating Social Security integration will strengthen the three-legged stool of retiremen
#3 Posted by MB, CJR on Thu 8 Jul 2010 at 01:16 PM
The deficit commission and deficit hawks want to get people in life rafts while Thimbles wants to scream at the iceberg.
Well, at least now you are admitting there is a problem. That’s a step in the right direction.
#4 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 8 Jul 2010 at 03:48 PM
I've never had a problem admitting problems, I only argue against the kinds of problems people like yourself are fixated on.
With social security, the problem is not the program.
It was funded and continues to be funded and will continue to be funded if one takes some minor steps.
The problem is with the people who took the money from the fund.
If you took the money from a fund to pay for tax cuts, you have to pay it back. That's what adults do.
If two children are given chocolate bars and one child steals the chocolate from the other child and eats it, an adult must make him give back the chocolate.
What the child might want to do is claim "No, I didn't steal it. A fairy took it and it's gone now. This chocolate bar in my hand is mine. I don't know what happened to the crying kid."
"You have chocolate stains on the corners of your mouth."
"That's mud!"
"It' chocolate."
"You can't have mine!"
"You took his, so you can't keep yours. People shouldn't steal."
"Leave me alone! WHAAAAAA!"
"Sorry kid, but we're going to have to raise your historically low taxes."
You made the point about social security being a paid for benefit, not a charity, therefore social security should not collect more than the ceiling in payroll tax since $80,000 people will never see the benefit.
Well if those benefits are paid for, you cannot adjust them and reduce them willy nilly after they have been paid for. If it's not a charity, then it's an obligation that must be paid. If you reduce those benefits you are robbing clients of those benefits who paid their dues dutifully.
Which touches on something else Bonehead said. He doesn't understand why Social Security is paying people who have sufficient other benefits and pensions.
It's because those people paid their dues. The problem isn't the program, the problem is embezzlement. The dues were stolen, so they have to be restituted.
How is cutting a program going to fix an embezzlement problem?
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 8 Jul 2010 at 04:28 PM
You both are wrong. Mike H focuses on spending, but ignores the payroll taxes that currently outpace benefits, therefore running it's own "balanced" budget that he claims is so important. Funny how the only Government program that generates a surplus is "broke". Thimbles is wrong in claiming the surplus has been stolen. U.S. Treasury Bonds are not worthless IOUs, stolen by Congress. They are purchased in high confidence by investors all over the world from The Mighty Free Market. The US has never defaulted on an obligation. It amazes me how a govrenment progam with it's own dedicated funding source and asset reseves is considered a progam in crisis. Funny how no one says this about Defense spending, it's always the entitlement progams' fault!
#6 Posted by Dblacksd, CJR on Fri 9 Jul 2010 at 01:17 AM
I know that the
IOU'streasury bonds are not worthless to social security, just as they aren't worthless to the Chinese bondholders who buy them. There is an expectation that they will be redeemable for their value + interest at some point.The problem is the reserves required for redemption are lacking, and where Chinese may be able to sit back and wait for the reserves to rebuild, social security has the baby boom pushing through and will have to start redeeming those bonds soon.
That will put a drain on revenues which will require either a reduction in benefits or an increase in taxes to account for. The usual anti tax suspects are pushing for their solution, which involves a redefinition of paid for benefits. "Reform"
I believe you solve a revenue problem by, call me crazy, increasing revenues by lifting of the ceiling on payroll taxes and a capital gains tax for entitlements.
I believe you solve a revenue problem by cutting non-essential spending such as the 700 billion dollar military pig at the trough.
I'm not saying it's the entitlement program's fault. It's the fault of people with clout who do not want to pay their fair share for the maintenance of the society that enriched them.
The problem is that there is a long term federal government revenue shortage coming, the US can't forever trust on foreign credit and the benevolence of the Chinese, and the people in charge don't want to raise taxes on their class to pay for the shortage, they want to steal from the social security cookie jar,
That should not be politically acceptable.
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 9 Jul 2010 at 02:12 AM
If you took the money from a fund to pay for tax cuts, you have to pay it back. That's what adults do.
Do you really want to play that game and go there? Here’s the thing, my AGI puts me in the top 5% of the population. According to IRS, the top 50% of taxpayers are responsible for nearly all discretionary funds and the top 5% (which would include me) are responsible for over 60% of all discretionary funds.
So let’s say I agree that some of the trust fund money went to pay for “my tax cut” and since that money “must” have been taken from the social security trust fund , naturally the onus is on my and the rest of the individuals in my income bracket to pay back all the money taken from the trust fund. Fair enough …. but what about all the money that the lower 50%, those lesser people, owes us? Since the top 50% have not only paid 100% of things that everyone uses like national defense, highways, block grants to local schools and police departments, NASA but also paid for 100% for things they rarely if ever use like Head Start, WIC, food stamps, subsidized child assistance, public housing, etcetera, when do we get paid back for that?
Since many elected officials have been very effective at getting one half of the population to become financially dependant on the other half of the population, the answer is never. After all, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s vote come election time. But if you expect me to pay higher taxes to repay what I “stole” from the trust fund, when are those who have been subsidized off my work going to repay me? When is the unemployed electrician going to come over to my house and cut my grass or wash my car? Doesn’t he owe me that for all of my tax dollars that are now going to subsidize his life?
An argument only slightly more ridiculous than your to be sure.
But something else struck me about your argument: its inconsistent nature. According to you and Lieberman Social Security is a pay as you go program and one in which long term liabilities are funded through its trust fund. However these two modes are mutually exclusive. You have also argued that social security is a program of defined benefits based on how much you pay into it (paying the dues) and a program that needs to raise the cap on payroll taxes to keep it solvent. But if payroll taxes are raised does that mean that high income earners will receive the same rate of return that lower income participants are receiving? If it does, that means the solvency issue has not been addressed. You claim that Social Security is not charity but then claim that high income earners need to pay more payroll taxes, their “fair share”, to maintain society … that sounds an awful lot like wealth redistribution and charity to me.
And, as Lieberman has argued in the past, if Social Security is some sort of “social solidarity” compact, then why do we let so many public sector workers, over 6% of the nations workforce, opt out completely? Why do they have the opportunity to participate in privately managed retirement plans? Oh, that’s right, they are union members and vote democrat and as an integral part of the party’s nomenklature they are legally exempted from the laws that apply to we the “lesser peoples”!
Dblacksd, Social Security is broke because its long term liabilities far outstrip its assets and revenues.
#8 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 9 Jul 2010 at 11:02 AM
Yes Mike, SS is a wealth redistribution program. That is the whole point! When the Mighty Free Market shits on itself, as it did recently, SS becomes the only source of income to replace those Magic free market accounts that suddenly become worthless. No, that unemployed electrician does not want to become your personal assistant, he wants to go back to work being an electrician. But since demand for labor and demand are below capacity, and there are 5 unemployed electricians fighting for every open job, his chances of finding a job are very slim. This is especially true if he is in the 45-65 age group who stay unemployed longer, who then have no choice but to take SS early (which was the point of Trudy's article). Sorry, Mike I can't cry for you or others in the higher income brackets, when your share of income increases and effective tax rate deceases and the unemployed electricians see no income growth, I will not shed tears for you. Another thing. EVERY government program is "is broke because its long term liabilities outstrip its assets and revenues". Why target the one program for cuts that is fiscally responsible - having its own dedicated revenue and asset reserves? Why target the one program that will still afford 76% of its scheduled benefits when it is insolvent? Why not target other programs that pay 0% of scheduled expenditures? Like the Department of Defense? Hmmm, could it be because of class warfare, those "lesser people", people like my Mom, should just go fuc*k themselves?
#9 Posted by Dlbacksd, CJR on Fri 9 Jul 2010 at 01:02 PM
The more I read and see, the more I think a revolution is coming. I and my friends took early Social Security because of three reasons: (1) we couldn't afford standard health insurance anymore, (2) we have medical problems that make holding a full-time job difficult, (3) our income cannot keep up with expenses. And I'm talking about educated white-collar workers!
Alan Simpson and his Cat Food Commission should have been strangled at conception, but our entire administration, both Republican and Democrat, is completely corrupt. Voting out Bush and getting Bush lite instead is just more fuel for the fire. I predict violent protests, even if us old folks will be doing it via rolling walkers.
#10 Posted by Sharonsj, CJR on Sun 11 Jul 2010 at 01:12 PM
Seriously? You're going to claim that the poor rich people are owed money from the poor? After the crisis fashioned by the rich and for the rich kicked the crap out of the poor?
Oh, fricken please.
You know why the taxes of the top income people fund much of the government (when you exclude payroll taxes, of course)
It's because their incomes have doubled, if not tripled, over the last thirty years while everyone else's wages stagnated.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3220
In other words, your tax/funding ratios are a function of inequality, of an unbalanced economy, not of some rob the rich to pay the poor scheme. You are paying slightly above 1920's income tax rates and I can assume you're not starving, unlike the people who's wages have stagnated or fallen while the economy decided to go on a credit bender benefiting the top 5% as private pensions were robbed of their value.
Sorry dude, but if you're argument is "Think of the poor rich." I gotta say "Wow. We didn't think of them enough during the Bush Administration?"
PS. When you look at Social Security projections over time, the expense is a stable and almost negligible increase.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
Between 2010 and 2083, Old Age Social Insurance and Disability Insurance is going to increase 1%.
Between 2010 and 2083, Medicare and Medicaid is going to increase 7.82%.
The Social Security program is not the problem. You have a health care, military, and insufficient revenue from an increasingly unequal society problem. Stealing from the most regressively funded program to patch problems unrelated to the program will not fix those problems.
#11 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 11 Jul 2010 at 08:33 PM
Interesting read from a long time defender of the Social Security and and economics PHD
http://www.newschief.com/article/20100710/NEWS/7105014/1013/opinion?Title=Social-Security-money-stolen-by-government
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 11 Jul 2010 at 08:37 PM
Seriously? You're going to claim that the poor rich people are owed money from the poor? After the crisis fashioned by the rich and for the rich kicked the crap out of the poor?
I am simply responding to your poppycock argument that since the trustfund when to pay for my taxbreak, I need to pay the trustfund back. If that’s so, as I argued, then the poor people need to pay me back for all that delicious gubmint cheese they have been getting.
It's because their incomes have doubled, if not tripled, over the last thirty years while everyone else's wages stagnated.
First, your own source shows that to not be the case. While its true that the top income earners have seen very high income growth, all income brackets have seen income growth, not stagnation or decline over the past 30 years. You do know hat the definition of stagnation is, don’t you? Or is this just another example of Chomskyism at work, where you define 16% growth as “stagnation”.
But that points to a more broad incoherent assumption the left has: the national economy is a zero sum game. Just because I make an additional dollar this year doesn’t mean someone on the bottom income rung made one less. That’s just not how it works. To the average liberal, economics is a zero sum game in which the only way to prosper is at the expense of someone else. Thus, it’s up to the government to “spread the wealth around” so that no one excels and everyone is mired in mediocrity. The left would rather see everyone financially punished rather than see anyone succeed.
PS. When you look at Social Security projections over time, the expense is a stable and almost negligible increase.
Social Security has a near term gaping deficit, looking at projections 50 years out doesn’t do us any good when we need to deal with what’s 5-10 years out.
#13 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Mon 12 Jul 2010 at 12:07 PM
"Or is this just another example of Chomskyism at work, where you define 16% growth as “stagnation”."
Nice. That 16% growth in after tax income can be traced from 2001 (when it was 0) to 2007(when it hit 16%). Inflation over that period was between 16 and 18 percent, depending on where in 2001 you start and 2007 you end (January 2001 to 2007 = 15.60%, December 2001 to 2007 = 18.87%) When your salary can barely keep up with inflation, that's stagnation.
"But that points to a more broad incoherent assumption the left has: the national economy is a zero sum game. Just because I make an additional dollar this year doesn’t mean someone on the bottom income rung made one less. That’s just not how it works. To the average liberal, economics is a zero sum game in which the only way to prosper is at the expense of someone else. Thus, it’s up to the government to “spread the wealth around” so that no one excels and everyone is mired in mediocrity. The left would rather see everyone financially punished rather than see anyone succeed."
You're a joke. No liberal has any problem with the rich making as munch money as they can so long as they don't use criminal means to do so and they pay their bills.
Liberals get upset when the rich expect to offload their costs on the public, be it in terms of health, environment, and safety or in terms of crony capitalism where profits are based on widespread fraud without fear of prosecution. Liberals et upset when the rich indulge themselves in the wealth the society produces, but lobby to reduce their contributions back to the society that gave them the opportunities and the infrastructure that made their fortunes possible. The rich have benefited from their participation in a system, so when that system needs support, we expect them to contribute as we do - not to offshore their profits and labor and watch as their hoarding leaves the land they claim affiliation with with a desiccated economy. We expect them to support the ladders they climbed up upon so that others might to climb, not to pull up the ladders and spit on the riff raff below. This ain't Marxism, this is the obligation of a citizen who loves his country and cherishes his society. You maintain the system for the next generation, not frickken plunder it while funneling campaign money to the politicians who will help you do it without consequence.
Many of the rich these days do not want to suffer any consequence nor give anything back to the society who's riches helped them achieve. Liberals have no problem with people, we have problems with parasites. Overly compensated ones.
"Social Security has a near term gaping deficit, looking at projections 50 years out doesn’t do us any good when we need to deal with what’s 5-10 years out."
Lie lie lie. Expenses for the baby boom will exceed revenues in 2024, then you'll have the tap the IOU's.
Therefore, there needs to be steps taken to prepare for that problem 15 years from now. A revenue problem. Lift the payroll ceiling and add a financial transactions tax, of 1% or so, to dissuade some of the speculation that took private pensions to the cleaners in the first place.
Pay expenses with that and put the surplus into the trust. If more money is required because the trust was depleted during the unfunded war spending and the unfunded tax cuts, give the rich a choice: do you want a big manly military so bad you'll pay for it in tax income tax increases or are do you want to keep a small budget army (a little larger than China and the next two combined) and taxes low?
Those are the just choices. Your choices involve robbing the middle and poor to pay for the rich's tax breaks, and that's just scummy looting.
Which is what liberals have grown to expect from conservatives.
#14 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 12 Jul 2010 at 01:46 PM
16% = stagnation … got it, and under those much despite Bush years to boot!
You're a joke. No liberal has any problem with the rich making as munch money as they can so long as they don't use criminal means to do so and they pay their bills.
I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money – Barak Obama
Liberals get upset when the rich expect to off load their costs on the public, be it in terms of health, environment, and safety or in terms of crony capitalism where profits are based on widespread fraud without fear of prosecution.
Except, of course, when liberals like Obama buddy and Illinois senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias does it. Or when its Jan Schakowsky bailing out Shore Bank. Or when it’s Rham Emanuel who lives rent free in a condo paid for by a BP lobbyist. Then, of course, its OK, because being a good liberal means never having to say you are sorry.
Hell, you can even rape you masseuse if you feel like it!
The rich have benefited from their participation in a system, so when that system needs support, we expect them to contribute as we do - not to offshore their profits and labor and watch as their hoarding leaves the land they claim affiliation with with a desiccated economy.
That’s would explain why the wealthy bear an increasingly large share of the tax burden, because they are off shoring all their profits. Gotcha.
Liberals have no problem with people, we have problems with parasites. Overly compensated ones.
Parasites .. like people on SS disability and WIC? You know, people whose net withdrawals from the honey pot far exceed their contributions? How Darwinian of you!
Lie lie lie. Expenses for the baby boom will exceed revenues in 2024, then you'll have the tap the IOU's.
Truth, truth, truth … (that was fun), social security is spending more than it is taking in RIGHT NOW.
The ignorance of your argument is exceeded only by the ease with which I can document otherwise.
Therefore, there needs to be steps taken to prepare for that problem 15 years from now. A revenue problem. Lift the payroll ceiling and add a financial transactions tax, of 1% or so, to dissuade some of the speculation that took private pensions to the cleaners in the first place.
Am I to assume that if I have to pay more in payroll taxes, I will get more in benefits when I retire? Didn’t think so.
Which is what liberals have grown to expect from conservatives.
Aside from all that self righteous smugness, the best part about being a liberal is the ability to pat your own back for spending someone else’s money.
#15 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Mon 12 Jul 2010 at 02:07 PM
Why do you think I think Obama is a liberal? Other than fancy speeches, half of which usually echoes conservative framing, where do you get the idea that he's in anyway a creature of the left.
It sure ain't based on policy nor loyalty to the progressive groups that helped elect him nor to the company he chooses to keep.
Anyways..
"16% = stagnation … got it, and under those much despite Bush years to boot!"
I hear in Zimbabwe your salary can go up 1000% and teachers are trillionaires.
http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=950&theme=statusofteachers&country=zimbabwe
But it's not so great if you can't buy your bread. 16% increase in a 17% inflation economy is not an increase in buying powe... oh why bother, you know this.
"That’s would explain why the wealthy bear an increasingly large share of the tax burden, because they are off shoring all their profits. Gotcha."
Decreasing share of the tax burden as a percentage of personal income, increasing share as a percentage of national income. The top 20% percent were taking a 52.4% of national income and were paying 65.3% of federal taxes in 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States
Those numbers have skewed further to the rich as their after tax income doubled under Bush.
Yes income tax is a progressive tax, unlike the payroll tax, which means it takes less from someone to whom a tax hike means the difference between a family meal or none and someone to whom a tax hike means an extra yacht or none.
"Truth, truth, truth … (that was fun), social security is spending more than it is taking in RIGHT NOW."
2008 Payroll tax revenues, in billions, according to the 2009 actuarial report:
Source OASI $574.6 DI $97.6
Expenses OASI $516.2 DI 109.0
Difference $47 billion.
But, as I said before, Medicare is screwed.
HI $198.7 SMI —
HI $235.6 SMI 232.6
Social security is funded, Medicare, medicare part d and medicaid are not.
"Am I to assume that if I have to pay more in payroll taxes, I will get more in benefits when I retire? Didn’t think so."
Am I to assume that americans will get their paid for benefits reduced because you took an unfunded tax cut during an unfunded war? You'd better not think so.
Whether it's because of general revenue sucked away to redeem treasury bonds or a new tax to replace the missing funds, you're going to pay for it either way. This way makes the hit easier to manage.
"Aside from all that self righteous smugness, the best part about being a liberal is the ability to pat your own back for spending someone else’s money."
Really. After the Bush years and the global economy your class trashed and the AIG/Federal reserve bailouts to give failed bankers taxpayer funded bonuses, your going to complain about the liberals spending other people's money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MIffyoEDEM
#16 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 12 Jul 2010 at 10:27 PM
Why do you think I think Obama is a liberal? Other than fancy speeches, half of which usually echoes conservative framing, where do you get the idea that he's in anyway a creature of the left.
It sure ain't based on policy nor loyalty to the progressive groups that helped elect him nor to the company he chooses to keep.
Anyways..
"16% = stagnation … got it, and under those much despite Bush years to boot!"
I hear in Zimbabwe your salary can go up 1000% and teachers are trillionaires.
http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=950&theme=statusofteachers&country=zimbabwe
But it's not so great if you can't buy your bread. 16% increase in a 17% inflation economy is not an increase in buying powe... oh why bother, you know this.
"That’s would explain why the wealthy bear an increasingly large share of the tax burden, because they are off shoring all their profits. Gotcha."
Decreasing share of the tax burden as a percentage of personal income, increasing share as a percentage of national income. The top 20% percent were taking a 52.4% of national income and were paying 65.3% of federal taxes in 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States
Those numbers have skewed further to the rich as their after tax income doubled under Bush.
Yes income tax is a progressive tax, unlike the payroll tax, which means it takes less from someone to whom a tax hike means the difference between a family meal or none and someone to whom a tax hike means an extra yacht or none.
"Truth, truth, truth … (that was fun), social security is spending more than it is taking in RIGHT NOW."
2008 Payroll tax revenues, in billions, according to the 2009 actuarial report:
Source OASI $574.6 DI $97.6
Expenses OASI $516.2 DI 109.0
Difference $47 billion.
But, as I said before, Medicare is screwed.
HI $198.7 SMI —
HI $235.6 SMI 232.6
Social security is funded, Medicare, medicare part d and medicaid are not.
"Am I to assume that if I have to pay more in payroll taxes, I will get more in benefits when I retire? Didn’t think so."
Am I to assume that americans will get their paid for benefits reduced because you took an unfunded tax cut during an unfunded war? You'd better not think so.
Whether it's because of general revenue sucked away to redeem treasury bonds or a new tax to replace the missing funds, you're going to pay for it either way. This way makes the hit easier to manage.
"Aside from all that self righteous smugness, the best part about being a liberal is the ability to pat your own back for spending someone else’s money."
Really. After the Bush years and the global economy your class trashed and the AIG/Federal reserve bailouts to give failed bankers taxpayer funded bonuses, your going to complain about the liberals spending other people's money.
oookay then.
#17 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 12 Jul 2010 at 10:28 PM
Thimbles, Thimbles, Thimbles … whatever are we going to do with you.
Why do you think I think Obama is a liberal? Other than fancy speeches, half of which usually echoes conservative framing, where do you get the idea that he's in anyway a creature of the left.
But it's not so great if you can't buy your bread. 16% increase in a 17% inflation economy is not an increase in buying powe... oh why bother, you know this.
There are these things called footnotes and the source you pulled that information from clearly says in its footnotes that all income data was adjusted for inflation.
2008 Payroll tax revenues, in billions, according to the 2009 actuarial report: Source OASI $574.6 DI $97.6 Expenses OASI $516.2 DI 109.0 Difference $47 billion.
As a member of the reality based community, I thought you’d keep more current on the news ">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/economy/25social.html"> more current on the news
This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Am I to assume that americans will get their paid for benefits reduced because you took an unfunded tax cut during an unfunded war? You'd better not think so.
But didn’t you just say that Social Security was a benefit, not a charity and that people who dutifully pay their dues are obliged to be paid back? If I wind up paying more into Social Security, doesn’t your argument necessitate paying me the benefits to which I am owed? If my payroll tax cap is lifted, but my future benefits don’t rise accordingly, isn’t that just a wealth transfer scheme? How does Trudy’s beloved “social solidarity” play into that?
Really. After the Bush years and the global economy your class trashed and the AIG/Federal reserve bailouts to give failed bankers taxpayer funded bonuses, your going to complain about the liberals spending other people's money.
As I am sure you know, I was 100% against TAARP and all the other bailouts of 2008 and 2009. And what exactly is my class? Is it the class that largely subsidizes the lefts social welfare programs? I think it is.
#18 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Wed 14 Jul 2010 at 10:16 AM
"There are these things called footnotes and the source you pulled that information from clearly says in its footnotes that all income data was adjusted for inflation."
Ah screw. I missed that. Mistake admitted, though you could make the argument that inflation in essential commodities such as real estate and medical coverage would have eaten that 16% and then some.
"As a member of the reality based community, I thought you’d keep more current on the news
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/economy/25social.html "
So the recession ate over 137 billion off of projected payroll tax revenues. Jesus these are bad times.
I guess that might be why the actuary report is delayed this year.
"But didn’t you just say that Social Security was a benefit, not a charity and that people who dutifully pay their dues are obliged to be paid back? If I wind up paying more into Social Security, doesn’t your argument necessitate paying me the benefits to which I am owed? "
The tax cuts were a wealth transfer from the fund that need to be paid back. When you make that argument against raising the payroll tax ceiling, you are making the argument for an increase in income taxes or (a bloody awful idea) a VAT because those benefits were paid for under a social contract that they would be paid back, not used to give the wealthy income tax breaks. My idea is for a temporary measure to set finances aright after they were set wrong by the policies of the past. There are other solutions:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0127/p09s01-coop.html
But cutting benefits is not one of them, by your own admission. You will not accept reduced benefits after you've paid for them, why should the middle and poor be expected to, especially when they can't afford to do so?
"As I am sure you know, I was 100% against TAARP and all the other bailouts of 2008 and 2009.
What were you for then? Complete economic collapse ala the Great Depression? Temporally nationalizing failing institutions ala the S&L crisis, Iceland, and the Swedes in the 1990's? It's meaningless to say you were against one thing if you didn't support an alternative. What did you support?
"And what exactly is my class? Is it the class that largely subsidizes the lefts social welfare programs? I think it is."
Your class pays a percentage of the taxes while it lobbies government to work on your behalf, finding ways to subsidize your activities and reduce your burdens. Your class pays a portion of federal tax revenue, you don't pay for your government's expenses. China and Japan do. Stop pretending your class is altruistically paying its bills when you are perfectly willing to let your government sink in its debts and obligations as long as you get to keep your fortune and it pays beyond top dollar and goes beyond the law in order to keep you safe.
You are less a citizen and more a mercenary. Other top echelon countries treat their citizens from top to bottom more decently than America and why? Because in other countries people pay for a competent civil service corps that benefits and regulates the society. In America only numero uno matters. The society and everything in it can go to hell, I can sell pension funds fraudulent products based on debts the borrowers cannot afford and that's okay with me because I got my bonus and I'm not giving a dime back.
This is called entrepreneurship, success, individualism, winning.
In my book it's sociopathy. You argue for letting your culture rot because it's not your problem. You argue for letting your culture rot because you've already scavenged it.
It's a sad world view which condemns the holder into being a promoter of others' misery. How can one be happy with that?
#19 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 14 Jul 2010 at 12:29 PM
The tax cuts were a wealth transfer from the fund that need to be paid back.
There were cuts for all income brackets, does everyone pay more accordingly? Additionally, with all the expanded and newly created programs since the 1983 reforms, do all these owe money to the trust fund as well? Do we take all those kids on SCHIP (as one example) and send them to the salt mines to pay back what SCHIP cost the trust fund, or are only the top income earners responsible for paying the trust fund back?
There are other solutions:
Drum’s article was interesting but he either didn’t read the 83 Commission’s report or decided to take some “creative liberties” with the facts because the Commission only talked about raising the taxable rate on Social Security benefits going to retired higher income earners, not raising income taxes on working non-retired high income earners. Sounds almost like means testing to me …. which I fully support.
But cutting benefits is not one of them, by your own admission. You will not accept reduced benefits after you've paid for them, why should the middle and poor be expected to, especially when they can't afford to do so?
I never said I wouldn’t accept lower benefits, in fact, I structure my retirement savings around the “metaphysical certainty” (to quote John McLaughlin) that Social Security won’t be there for me when I retire. But if Trudy, making her claims of “interclass solidarity”, expects me to pay one more dime RIGHT NOW I expect her to explain to me how I will be repaid with interest in the future. Don’t try and sell me some bullshit about sunshine and rainbows and how I am making my country’s future better, or how my extra taxes now are going to fuel the dreams and stomach of poor children on survivor benefits, SHOW ME THE MOTHER-F-ING MONEY! Put that paper in my palm, lay that cheddar on me! I expect the same rate of return on my Social Security as every other person who contributes to it ….. at least according to the “interclass solidarity” argument.
Realistically, I know that my payroll taxes will never be returned to me at the promised rate of return, but if you want to blow smoke up my ass about it, show me how it’s going to work for me.
What did you support? [about TAARP]
I support letting the bad banks and investment firms to go belly up, and letting all of its investors use their worthless stock to wipe their asses. The FDIC comes in an cleans up the failed banks and the SEC comes in and cleans up the Lehman Brothers of the world. Not ideal, and certainly ore painful than TAARP, but the continuing to reinflate an asset bubble makes no long term sense. Perhaps they will understand the risk reward theorem a bit better next time. You know, the whole socialize the losses and privatize the profits thing.
Your class pays a percentage of the taxes while it lobbies government to work on your behalf, finding ways to subsidize your activities and reduce your burdens.
No, what my class does is subsidize the politically connected wealthy and the bottom half. Did you get pregnant and want to send that baby to a medical waste dumpster, don’t worry, I got you covered. Did you buy too much house and now can’t make the mortgage payment, don’t worry, it’s on me! Did your oil rig blow up and now you need my help cleaning it up, don’t worry, I’ll send the USCG out to help you. Did you build your house on a flood plain, not get insurance and now all your worldly possession are floating down the Missouri, worry not, I’ll build you a new one. Make a bunch of bad loans to people who you should have known would never be able to repay them, I got you covered. Did your shitty company/union screw you over on your pension, no biggie, I’ll bust out my checkbook. Can’t pay for that childcare/health insurance because you decided to have a kid at 18, didn’t marry the loser and now
#20 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Wed 14 Jul 2010 at 05:31 PM
"There were cuts for all income brackets, does everyone pay more accordingly?"
I'd have no problem with that, so long as it was in proportion to the cuts their income brackets received.
"Additionally, with all the expanded and newly created programs since the 1983 reforms, do all these owe money to the trust fund as well?"
Those are part of the medicare clusterf*ck, and medicare + the whole American health care system need serious changes.
"Drum’s article was interesting but he either didn’t read the 83 Commission’s report or decided to take some “creative liberties” with the facts because the Commission only talked about raising the taxable rate on Social Security benefits going to retired higher income earners, not raising income taxes on working non-retired high income earners."
As soon as you decide to put the revenues into redeemable bonds so you can commit those revenues to general spending, you're committing the government to higher taxes. The action has an implication.
"But if Trudy, making her claims of “interclass solidarity”, expects me to pay one more dime RIGHT NOW I expect her to explain to me how I will be repaid with interest in the future."
But you were paid in the past. You could have returned your tax refunds during 2000's but you left a gaping hole in revenues instead. You should get what you paid for but you don't get paid twice.
"I support letting the bad banks and investment firms to go belly up, and letting all of its investors use their worthless stock to wipe their asses. The FDIC comes in an cleans up the failed banks and the SEC comes in and cleans up the Lehman Brothers of the world. Not ideal, and certainly ore painful than TAARP, but the continuing to reinflate an asset bubble makes no long term sense. Perhaps they will understand the risk reward theorem a bit better next time. You know, the whole socialize the losses and privatize the profits thing."
Total agreement and I said so at the time. On the other hand, as we've seen from other dissolutions, like GM, these necessary steps get treated like maoist takeovers of the commanding heights and such. But yeah, the government should have paid out the 2008 market cap for these companies and had the anti-fraud experts tear up the responsible parties, instead of committing multiple amounts of the 2008 market caps used to purchase nonvoting shares which are managed by a special trust appointed by the gover.. Argg-hang Geithner!
"Did you buy too much house and now can’t make the mortgage payment, don’t worry, it’s on me!"
Have you studied the Obama approach to underwater mortgages? You have to jump through dozens of hoops to make sure you qualify, it requires the bank's participation which it gives grudgingly, and after all that it's not the principle that's renegotiated, it's the interest. It's been an incompetently executed program from the start. (F'in geithner)
"don’t you dare get a job or join the service like I did to pay for that tuition"
Okay, you admit you participated in one of the biggest, most expensive, government cheese programs going. That kind of invalidates your "I'm a taxpayer and my checks supported all of you " argument when it's government checks and programs that got you where you are.
Gotta run but I'd like to see how you resolve that one, Mr. I-got-VHA-coverage.
#21 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 14 Jul 2010 at 07:01 PM
Those are part of the medicare clusterf*ck, and medicare + the whole American health care system need serious changes.
Your point being? They still took the money, and it still has to be repaid to the treasury, right?
As soon as you decide to put the revenues into redeemable bonds so you can commit those revenues to general spending, you're committing the government to higher taxes. The action has an implication.
Agreed, but Drum misrepresented what the original 1983 report said in order to suit his argument.
Total agreement and I said so at the time. On the other hand, as we've seen from other dissolutions, like GM, these necessary steps get treated like maoist takeovers of the commanding heights and such.
There was no need to bailout GM, they should have been sent into reorganization so they could tackle their structural issues (pensions and Union contracts). All the government bailout of GM and Chrysler did was give defacto control of the companies over to the unions and screw over all the secured debt holders. That was the Maoist part of it. A secured creditor takes a lower “reward” in the form of interest on their bonds with the lower associated risk that they will be the first paid out and this status is contractually guaranteed.
Okay, you admit you participated in one of the biggest, most expensive, government cheese programs going. That kind of invalidates your "I'm a taxpayer and my checks supported all of you " argument when it's government checks and programs that got you where you are. Gotta run but I'd like to see how you resolve that one, Mr. I-got-VHA-coverage.
Seriously? I spent 24 months on active duty, 15 months at sea and 11 of them with no shore leave in the Adriatic (mostly) on an LHA and received about $8,500 in tuition and fee reimbursements. It wound up covering about 25% of my tuition/fees/room board and living expenses. The more generous GI benefits (previously at any rate) only apply for longer term commitments. You call this the biggest, most expensive, government cheese program? It wasn’t a handout; I performed an extremely hazardous (even in peacetime) occupation for less than minimum wage.
The government “check” didn’t get me where I am, I did. I would have been more than capable of paying for my tuition with my side work had the need arisen. If that’s really the best you got …..
#22 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 15 Jul 2010 at 04:25 PM