Bush puts raising SS Cap on table. We will be asked to pay to kill SS!

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/

In an interview with six regional newspapers yesterday, President Bush for the first time said he is not ruling out raising the amount of income subject to the Social Security payroll tax, which is now capped at $90,000.

Bush also said that cutting Social Security benefits from the currently scheduled levels would be "an adjustment to reality."

________________________

This must be their goal now-- to push Congress toward Lindsay Graham's plan, which features raising the cap to $200,000 to privatize Social Security, not to save it--a "bipartisan" plan apparently being worked by Republicans and the usual suspects--Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Max Baucus, Blanch Lincoln and Kent Conrad.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=15&u=/ap/20050212/ap_on_re_us/social_security_broker

[librechik]

1. FLIP-FLOP

He said a few weeks ago that he had ruled out raising taxes

He's a Flip Flopper!

[flpoljunkie]

2. It's only a flip-flop if the media says it is, and they are cowards!

[RobertSeattle]

4. Just like a Lie is not a Lie unless you KNOW it is a LIE

A Flip Flop is not a Flip Flop if you can SPIN you wait out of calling a flip flop.

[Zynx]

3. Raising the cap to $200,000 might be sufficient by itself.

[stevedeshazer]

5. Your subject line says it all.

That is exactly what is happening.

It's blackmail. They'll raise the cap in exchange for piratization.

And the Dems will enable them, especially the ones you mentioned.

:grr:

[papau]

6. Not as bad as it sounds - remove the cap yields about 100 billion

to put into voluntary accounts as a match plus a gift to lower paid workers.

There would be no change to the Trust Asset build up or the financing of current Social Security, so there would not be any real cutbacks (there would need be a pretend cut back like the after tax wage indexing).

As long as the current flow of payroll taxes are not disturbed, and current benefits - including all projected future benefits - are not disturbed - they can use the new tax revenue as they like - IMHO!

:-)

But none of this partial raise the cap garbage - such as a 200,000 cap. It has to be no cap for the sake of equity.

[flpoljunkie]

10. Removing the cap to privatize & destroy Social Security is Bush's aim.

This is the point I am making. I am fine with eliminating the cap--as long as it is done to save Social Security--not to privatize and, thus, destroy it.

And, by the way, we could also erase the Social Security shortfall by eliminate Bush tax cuts for those making over $200,000. There are many things that could be done to fix the shortfall, as there is no Social Security crisis!

[papau]

22. Using the extra money for a 401k is the Clinton proposal - I still like

the idea.

There is one huge dif between voluntary, with gov match financed by tax on rich, with guar. Soc Sec benefit/system unchanged -

and the Bush carve out plan - namely the Bush carve out account plan destroys Social Security by destroying the flow of money to Social Security - making the 2018 taxes less than benefits date that Bush currently screams about into a 2012 date! Hell of a solution! :-)

Extra savings is needed - and this is a way to get there.

Bush borrow to put into accounts IS ZERO NET SAVINGS -

I wish the media understood that Greenspan was a liar today when he suggested that Bush type private accounts financed by borrowing would increase the National Savings rate.

[flpoljunkie]

28. Clinton's add-on accounts? Alan Greenspan is banking, Wall Street shill!

Creepy Alan Greenspan doesn't give a shit about Main Street. He sold out the American people by endorsing Bush's tax cuts. What a load of crap he peddled about worrying that surpluses would be bad for the United States--like there ever was any chance that we would pay off our trillions of dollars of debt!

As for your wish regarding the cowardly corporate media pointing out that Greenspan may be wrong about something--ain't gonna happen!

http://www.tcf.org/4L/4LMain.asp?SubjectID=4&ArticleID=873

Alan Greenspan and the Meaning of "Trust"


Greg Anrig, Jr.

The Century Foundation, 2/15/2005

When Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testifies before the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, it will be the first time he will comment publicly on President George W. Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security. Great weight will be given to his statements. But in light of Greenspan's long, tortured relationship with Social Security, his views should be treated with the same skepticism that Dr. Phil shows toward his guests.

Greenspan famously chaired a bipartisan commission that in 1983 issued recommendations for strengthening Social Security. Those reforms, which President Reagan signed into law in April of that year, made a promise to American workers: your payroll taxes will be increased in order to finance the build up of trust funds, which will secure Social Security benefits when you retire in the 21st Century. The Greenspan Commission's plan has worked even better than imagined, with projections today showing that promised benefits can be paid in full until 2052, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

<>But Greenspan himself, in an interview with the New York Times just weeks after the signing ceremony, said, "Do I like the present Social Security system? No. If you asked me whether it would be necessary in the ideal society, I'd say no. Our type of economy is far removed from where I would like to see it, but you have to be careful about moving from one type of society to another."

Over the past two decades, Greenspan has repeatedly argued that Reagan's "ironclad commitment" should be broken. Year after year, he has said that the benefits promised to future retirees are unaffordable, that the retirement age should be delayed further, and that other ways of reducing benefits should be considered. And yet in 2001, Greenspan endorsed the Bush tax cuts, which mainly benefited the highest income Americans. If made permanent, those tax cuts would amount to more than three times the size of Social Security's projected shortfall over the next 75 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In Greenspan's view, the Social Security benefits that his own commission promised to future retirees are not affordable, but tax cuts for the wealthy are.

[flpoljunkie]

12. "there would need be a pretend cut back like the after tax wage indexing"

Pretend cut back? I have read that indexing Social Security benefits to prices, rather than wages, would cut Social Security benefits by as much as 40%!

Surely you do not agree with this.

[papau]

15. Prices are a 50% cut over 50 years-after-tax wage index is still a cut but

only 15% over 50 years.

[flpoljunkie]

18. "Projected future benefits" will indeed be disturbed!

"As long as the current flow of payroll taxes are not disturbed, and current benefits - including all projected future benefits - are not disturbed - they can use the new tax revenue as they like - IMHO!"

[papau]

23. Why - unless the indexes change the extra monies from the raising the cap

can be isolated from the other flows - and the match adjusted up or down as the payroll tax flow so isolated changes.

That means the Soc Sec guaranteed benefit cash flow would be totally unchanged!

Now I grant you the GOP will fight the automatic adjustment mechanism above - and instead try to cut current Guaranteed Soc Sec benefits so as to get more into private accounts

But that does not have to happen.

As an idea, wage cap removal money as a funding for voluntary addon private accounts 401k type match makes a lot of sense.

But I see your point that once we discuss compromising, the Dems may get their pocket picked.

[flpoljunkie]

25. Yes, agree about Dems getting pockets picked. GOP aim is to destroy

the Social Security program--which is not an investment program, but an insurance program--and which the GOP has wanted to kill for a long time.

They are spending all the Social Security surplus which Clinton and Al "Lockbox" Gore tried to save--and driving the nation deep in debt using the Social Security and even Medicare surpluses to pay for their tax cuts for the rich and their "nation building" in Iraq.

We are in a very serious long term deficit situation.

[Demit]

7. If you make less than $90,000, nothing changes for you. You pay SS tax

on all of your income. If you currently make more than $90K, you'll be paying the SS tax on all your income, up to $200K.

If you fall into that latter group, my heart bleeds for you, really it does :)

[xkenx]

8. Raising the cap

without privatizing anything would probably solve SS by itself. SS taxes are highly regressive by taxing the same % of all income-earners, and then having the wealthiest (over $90K) pay zero percent after $90K. Raising the limit would only impact those most able to pay and make the tax a bit less regressive.

[denverbill]

9. Actually, I'm not all that opposed to this.

However, I'd peg the cap to the President's salary so that every penny of the President's salary is subject to SS taxation. Personally, I think they should eliminate the cap altogether so rich and poor alike are taxed at more similar rates.

on edit: however, I don't think privatization is necessary.

[DistantWind88]

11. Of course then those earning that much

would get MORE in SS when they retire since payments are pegged to earnings.

[flpoljunkie]

13. Bush wants to also peg SS benefits not to earnings, but to prices!

[DistantWind88]

16. That was before this switch.

[snippy]

17. I like your suggestion on pegging the cap. It is a nice detail. n/t

[DemocracyInaction]

14. An interesting suggestion sent in to our local newspaper

in the Letters to the Editor section. What do you think of this:

The person said that a way to juggle these opposing sides is to let a person VOLUNARILY raise his own Social Security tax/contribution by 2% which would be handled as a before-tax income and use this 2% to invest in SS privatization accounts. Therefore, the flow into the SS reserves would stay steady and not have to have the massive borrowing for the "transition". I kind of like the idea of letting people decide if they want to pay more tax or if they don't....it shuts up the goddamn "paranoid of taxes" group. Bush assumes they DON'T; but I wonder how many people wouldn't mind an extra $10-20 bucks a month going in?? Bush makes it sound like a raise would be the end of the world and cost half a person's salary!!!!!!!!!!

[snippy]

19. This probably will enrage the Tax Cut Monkeys.

The republican welfare queens too.

[bush_is_wacko]

20. You know I have NEVER understood the SS cap anyway!

Everyone should pay into SS. I realize the rich are never going to need it, but damn it they are American citizens and they are living off her riches and they are doing it on the backs of those that will someday NEED Social Security. To hell with the cap. EVERYONE should pay! And if they were decent they would understand why they should pay SS.

Many a poor/middle-class man/woman has slaved at a company for 20-30 years and built it from his blood, sweat, and tears, only to find out when it's time to retire all his/her stock in that company has been skimmed by his employer and EVERYTHING he thought he could depend on is BUNK! If the wealthy owners of that company had been paying into SS this man could redeem the funds from their portions!

I know that will never happen, but I think the rich should stop ripping off the people that made them what they are. No big company is a one man operation.

[Inland]

21. Bush says SS surplus doesn't exist--raising payroll tax raises his ripoff

So what's the point? What's the point of increasing the surplus so that Bush can use it to make his deficits look smaller and the next nutbag conservative steals it ten years from now by claiming the SS surplus is meaningless?

Looks to me like Bush has never seen a tax on wages he didn't like. As far as he is concerned, taxes on wages should pay for everything and income from investments should pay for nothing. Raising taxes on wages of the high wage earners is nothing to him, since it isn't having high incomes that makes Bush love you. Its the fact you don't work for a living, and that you live off investments or inheritances rather than a wage.

[DemocracyInaction]

24. I've paid heavily into SS and am ineligible to receive a dime

How would you like to be in those shoes----many are and no one is addressing that one. You see because I was a teacher I cannot collect what they call "two government pensions". From my first jobs as a teen, to all the jobs working way through college, to all the part-time, weekend, summer jobs had for decades to supplement my fantastic high teaching salary, I had to pay into SS. I am forbidden to claim one dime of it. So, I laugh when people get their panties in a wad about making it a "means tested" program. Shit..just give me back what the hell I put in without interest. But then again, given the the only thing lower than criminals in this country are teachers, I'm not holding my breath!!!!

[flpoljunkie]

27. This is grossly unfair! Aren't many state employees required to pay into

both retirement and Social Security. Are teachers considered county and not state employees?

[geek tragedy]

26. You're bitching about a plan to raise taxes on the rich?

My god, people.

[flpoljunkie]

29. Why don't you read posts? Bush raising cap to destroy SS, not save it!

[geek tragedy]

30. This is a concession on Bush's part, not a victory for him.

Privatization has nothing to do with "saving" SS. They are separate issues.

[flpoljunkie]

31. Disagree. Graham's plan is to raise cap to $200,000 to privatize SS--

which would destroy the system as we know it. It is not a retirement program--it is an insurance program.

Nothing Bush has recommended would address the shortfall in Social Security because they aim to destroy this program, not to save it by addressing a grossly exaggerated shortfall.

[papau]

32. I agree - but that is Grahams plan - a switch to Clinton 98 would a good

face saver for the GOP.

[oecher3]

35. Papau has a good point here

You impress me again with your knowledge and raise a good point.
It seems that Bush, Greenspan and Co. need some extra help selling their fake idea and now try to save their face to make it appear a more middle-of-the-road-plan, like the Clinton proposal; however, don't forget who you are dealing with. I would rather let them hang a bit longer and see what else they have to offer in order to get their privatization/ piratization. Maybe, in the end the price might be to high for them and they will give up.
But giving in now seems pointless and dangerous to me.
And what's with the $200K mark, this seem to be the p-bus-stop for the GOP, below are peanuts, let's tax that, above that you get a tax break.

(sorry me English needs editing today!) <:tinfoilhat:>

[flpoljunkie]

38. "What's with the $200K cap?" GOP mustn't offend really rich--their base!

[flpoljunkie]

36. Ain't gonna happen.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[sadiesworld]

34. Yeah, JK wanted to increase taxes for those making OVER $200K

while * wants to increase them for those making UNDER $200K. And DUers are f'ing cheering about it. Go figure.

[flpoljunkie]

37. Great point, sadiesworld!

[tom_paine]

39. Very relevant "This Modern World" on the subject

[flpoljunkie]

40. That was terrific! Thanks.