Bush's plan to shift tax burden onto working Americans: "S.S. reform"

[stray cat]

Social security is currently set up as a disproportionate tax on the lower and middle class. The cap on paying social security taxes is 87,000. This means once your income passes this minimum you pay in no additional social security taxes - the wealthy get a free pass or a virtual tax break.

Social security taxes currently go into the general fund even though Bush promised to put them in a lockbox. That means the surpluses that are currently being generated through social security are being used by Bush to pay for his tax cuts to wealthy Americans and the war in Iraq.

Bush wants to cut the benefits for social security but not the taxes. Social security becomes a way to disproportionately extract taxes from low and middle income Americans to run the government and provide greater tax cuts (income, estate, dividends) to the wealthy.

This is Bushs way to shift more of the expense of government to lower income groups while pretending to help them by "saving" social security.

We need to stop the use of social security revenue as a welfare program to subsidize tax breaks for wealthy Americans.

1. Create the promised lockbox for social security funds.
2. Make SS taxes fair by removing the current cap of 87,000 for paying social security taxes.

[rkc3]

1. Robert Reich on Marketplace had an idea last night...

Don't place the SS tax on the first $10K of income - about $1,240 and return it to the employee as long as it is invested or saved for retirement. Raise the threshhold to $90K at the same time.

Sounds simple and equitable. He also said there's not a snowball's chance in hell it would ever pass.

[meow2u3]

5. RAISE the threshhold to 90 grand?! Is that all?

How about eliminating altogether the upper income threshhold? This includes a FICA tax on capital gains and other unearned income. I know that'll keep Social Security solvent!

[mrstick]

2. Medicare tax on unhealthy goods

how about a Medicare tax on items and activities that lead to health problems? If I as a taxpayer have to pay your med. bills after you spent 40 years smoking, I'm going to be pissed

[Demit]

6. you'd better extend that to all risk-taking behaviors then.

People who go sky-diving... Or how about people with unhealthy dietary behavior? Eat too much sugar; drink too much; don't exercise enough. What about people who drive too fast, or don't look both ways before they cross the street? What about people who do too much running, so they shoot out their knee joints?

We shouldn't have to pay their medical bills either, if they are going to engage in such foolhardy behavior.

[FloridaPat]

3. Problem with those $90,000 jobs is a lot are being outsourced

to save tons of money. Programming jobs are in the $50,000 to $150,000 range and the are sending them overseas as fast as they can. So income to SS is declining as we read.

[ChiciB1]

4. It's $87,000 right now...

but I'm not that well-informed as to why. Or for that matter when that cap was set or the reasoning behind it.

I do know that I've heard about some of the wealthy "triple dipping" such as retirees who draw from a Pension, from a Military Retirement and from Social Security. Has that changed in the past 10 years????

If those idiotic rural "red-stater's" fall for this I almost want to say "so be it." More intellectual people may have the savvy to go one on one with the market, but then they might just be those that don't have to worry if they lose any money. Who's going to pick up the tab when someone realizes that they haven't made enough money to "buffer" them in their retirement???

My husband retired early and we took a lump sum and put it into the Market. Right after 9/11 we lost a large chunk and to this date are still about $90,000 short of what we put in initially. When we realized how we were leaking we switched over to a simple IRA, but you can't make any money there either! At least not right now!

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

7. Its $90,000 for 2005

BUT - not all wages are subject to Soc Sec/Medicare taxes. ANything you put into a Section 125 (Flex Spending, Depedent Care,etc) or Section 132 (Commuting expenses) is ecempt from FICA

[ChiciB1]

9. I Stand Corrected

Thanks.

[rkc3]

8. After bush's comments yesterday about playing dice with your

retirement money, I can see how well his plans would work out for young (uneducated) investors.

It's one thing to be averse to change or to be risk-averse, but even on the face of this experiement, you can see the obvious flaws.