forcing people to pay in more and not receive larger benefits.
The idea is to give all seniors on Social Security enough to lift them above the poverty level.
I like that idea. Except, Obama and his friends want to achieve that admirable goal by replacing benefits now received by indigent seniors from the general fund with money paid into the Social Security fund by the middle class. (Remember no money is paid in on incomes over something around $106,000 or $110,000 so wealth is not subject to the tax in the first place.)
In order to do that, they will gradually reduce the Social Security benefits to seniors who are not indigent.
That is why they are claiming this plan would reduce the deficit. It shifts costs that are now paid out of the general fund -- like food stamps for seniors, housing assistance for seniors, certain other things, from the general fund and pays them out of the Social Security funds and Trust Fund.
I do not like this. It is not right.
I agree: Lift the cap and I would add tax all income from bonuses, stock options, and from capital gains and then reduce the payroll tax rate for everyone.
I am in favor of giving more money to seniors living under the poverty level, say some widow whose husband paid in but who did not pay in herself or someone who cheated the system, didn't pay the Social Security tax that was owed and now gets very little or someone who is elderly, say someone whose working years were mostly prior to the great inflation of the 1970s and 1980s.
But not from the Social Secuirty fund because that money is needed by middle class seniors.
The 401(K) invention of the 1970s and 1980s is a failure. Very few people could save enough in it to make much difference in retirement. And those who did have not seen much return in recent years. Their return from earlier years was partially or totally lost in 2008 and 2000, and now they get virtually no income from their savings.
Congress has made a mess of retirement policy when they were in office starting with Nixon.
One horrible mistake was to leave a law in place that allowed the owner of a company and a new buyer in a takeover to grab pension funds that had been promised to the employees. Those funds should have been sacrosanct. I think that happened in Enron.
As a result of that policy and the generally bad economy, the current generation of retirees, the new crop and future crops will not have pensions to supplement Social Security. Many people in their 50s and early 60s are living off their retirement savings because they can't get jobs.
This is not the time to make changes to Social Security -- and there may never be one.
Where are the jobs? This boondoggle plan for Social Security will not create jobs.
What will create jobs is making all those huge corporations that pay no taxes thanks to special tax breaks, park any income that might be taxable in tax havens around the world and then have the GALL, the unmitigated GALL to claim to be JOB CREATORS at a time when no jobs are being created -- at least no jobs for which Americans need apply and no jobs that pay well.
As you can tell. I want us to focus on job creation and taxing the corporations and ending the tax haven scam.
= new reply since forum marked as read
