"End welfare for the wealthy" by Senator Tom Coburn!

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/01/opinion/coburn-welfare-to-wealthy/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I intend to offer an alternative. Instead of punishing the rich with higher taxes, I will give Congress the option of helping pay for extending the payroll tax cut by ending welfare to the wealthy.

The goal of highlighting these excesses is not to demonize those who are successful. Instead, by highlighting the sheer stupidity of pampering the wealthy with lavish benefits through our safety net and tax code, I hope to make a moral and economic argument for real entitlement and tax reform.

In the case of entitlements such as Social Security, progressives have argued for decades that a program for poor people will be a poor program. Yet, Warren Buffett hardly needs the same retirement check as his secretary. Ending welfare handouts to millionaires will strengthen, not undermine, the safety net for people who need it most.

Yet, it's hard to understand how limiting the mortgage interest deductions for yachts will hurt working families. Defending spending in the tax code is not conservative. Providing tax earmarks and deductions to millionaires is a tax increase on everyone who doesn't receive the benefit. The only way we will enact real tax reform, and grow the economy, is by lowering tax rates and broadening the base by scaling back these egregious handouts. This is precisely what President Ronald Reagan did in 1986.

[Vincardog]

1. Social security is INSURANCE. If we means test it it becomes WELFARE. If anyone wants to strengthen

it they need to raise or eliminate the cap. WE do not need to lower the tax rates lower than they have been in 50 years.
Low taxes on the rich is what lead to the LAST (Great or near great) Depression.
WE need to broaden the tax base to include 99% inheritance tax on everything over 20 Million.
WE need to broaden the tax base to include an AMT for Corporations.
WE need to broaden the tax base to include tariffs on imported STEEL, Cloths, cars, electronics, and LABOR.

[zalinda]

2. While I understand where you are coming from

health insurance, car insurance and/or any other insurance program, does not pay out until you NEED it. This is why it is called insurance, rather than an account, as in health account, car account, etc.

zalinda

[Vincardog]

3. Health, car/any other insurance pays off when ever the trigger is pulled. Some pay off after x

amount of time with No Claims. If your point is that the rich don't need Social Security I agree.
I am saying that if you limit the payouts to the needy, the rich will not want not pay in.
The practice of limiting the payouts would undermine the program.

[zalinda]

5. So you can have a trigger with SS.

It is a requirement to be in. It's not like the rich never run out of money. Ask all the people who lost money in the markets over the last few years. I hope I never have to use my homeowners policy, but that doesn't meant that I don't have one. And, I bet that even the rich have homeowners insurance, just in case. Just in case is a small amount to pay, to be safe.

BTW, the trigger could be any where from $50,000 to $100,000. Most of the time the SS checks are deposited in the bank, and they don't even know that it's there.

zalinda

[Vincardog]

6. The trigger; with your car is an accident, with your house it is a loss, with Social Security is age

[onpatrol98]

7. True...but

Many people with no children or with children in private school realize they must still pay for public education with their taxes. Isn't this similar? Just because you don't need it personally, doesn't exempt you from participating in a system that collects your tax dollars for it.

[CJCRANE]

4. The 1% still need to pay their fair share in tax.

Raise their tax rate back to Clinton era levels first, then close off some of the other loopholes.