Good post Tobra.

I've written my repersentatives, but for some reason Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein don't agree with my point of view.

Bawahahah!

 

Last year the government spent $144 million in "extra" social security taxes. And the year before I think it was $120 million, etc, etc, etc.

Cyclical patterns exist in population growth rates. Therefore, we should save this "extra" social security tax money (Projected $110 million this year, and guess what, it will be spent instead of saved) as a fund to last the United States through the worst of the baby boomers. How can we say "OMG we're running out of money!" while we're dipping from the SS taxes?


Second, did you know that you only pay social security taxes on the first $90,000 of income? And that if the social security tax was a flat tax on all income, enough addditional money would be raised to pay for full benefits all the way through the baby boomers?

No projection has seen the program bankrupt. The worst projections predict that it will only be able to pay out 75% of benefits, which is still a good short better than the guaranteed benefits under a privatized system. Once the baby boomers have all died off, the program will be solvent again.

 

Yes, you only pay SS tax on the first $90,000 of income -- and that's the way it should be.

Otherwise you end up with some rich guy paying $150,000+ a YEAR in social security taxes and frankly, that's just not fair at all. Not even in the least.

Bottom line, we've been dipping into the SS fund for years and years and years, and we need to stop it -- period. Since we seem unable to do that, we should privatize it -- or do SOMETHING with it.

 

Well..... you have to have a job to pay into social security, so that one day you can collect it.

I think it's scary that high school kids can't get a job at the local fast food joint because they would rather hire Hispanics. Then their parents send them off to college for 4yrs, but when they get out they can't find a job in their field because they've never worked a day their entire life. If/when they do get a job one day, they can't handle it without a prescription of Zanex. Sure, some say they only take jobs Americans don't want. AND that may be somewhat true right now. But what happens when they have 5 kids, and they go thru the school system. They are going to want equal opportunity just like everyone else. Not fast food or landscaping. Your going to see a huge civil rights movement in the next 10 yrs. Affirmative Action will be re-established. With a country already having healthcare, employment, and retirement care problems we don't need to be inviting more people into the mix. Population grows exponentially. It's going to get interesting.

 

What is unfair about a flat tax?


Currently, average joe who makes under $90,000 pays a certain percentage, and some rich guy making $150,000 pays a smaller percentage of his income.


Currently we have a regressive SS tax system, the more you make the less you pay. I think that's far more unfair than a flat tax.

 

RB calling someone an arrogant asshole.. that's rich:lmfao:

 

But if it's all proportional then how is it not fair? I'm sure they wouldn't be hurting too much.

 

Solvent again which implies that it is insolvent now. Your rebuttal to my criticism supports my position more than yours, social security needs a bit of fixing. Clearly you agree something should be done, when you responded to my statement, you listed some of the things wrong with it.

One of the ways to impact the solvency of the program is to remove the cap. Which has people paying a huge chunk of money in and getting a small piece back to subsidize the poor management of the program and allow the program to continue paying the rapidly growing elderly population. Sure, you have the wealthy person paying the same percentage of income, but there is an upper limit on benefits too, so he won't recover all he put into it, making this unfair. You could also raise the retirement age, which would help some, but this will not go over well with the AARP crowd, and they are some voting, politically active MFers. This only addresses the money going out, and there will be less of a pinch if you approach the problem from both sides. There are also people coming in from around the world because we have such great "free" healthcare, the Medicare population is going to grow faster and faster(Separate, though closely linked issue).

I personally think we should ditch the whole system and go to a national sales tax, with necessities exempt and some method to give the poor a break, perhaps a rebate to those who make less than $XX. This would allow you to tax illegal aliens and people vacationing here. This would greatly simplify the tax code, which would no doubt piss off the accounting industry. This would also promote savings, because if you don't spend the money, it is tax free. Increased savings provides cash for capital investment, which should help stimulate the economy to offset any shortfalls caused by people saving excessively(As if Americans would ever do that).

I write to Boxer and Feinstein too, but they often don't reply to my correspondence, particularly when they have done or said something really egregious and I call them on it.

 

Ugh, national sales tax. This thread is over.

 

why? because it makes an inordinately larger amount of sense than any of the other options including our current system.

what would YOU propose to fix the problem/s with SS and the tax code in general?