Since when does "Shared Sacrifice" = "Cut Social Security?"

[jtown1123]

Pretty interesting blog post from NCPSSM...shows that if we did nothing to Social Security, benefit cuts would be 25% yet Bowles and Simpson's plan would actually cuts benefits 35-41%...good read:


When Shared Sacrifice Really Just Means Cut Social Security
By NCPSSM | November 12, 2010

Fiscal Committee Chairmen, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, have argued their plan for Social Security is solely about solvency. Really? As the Social Security actuaries have said, beneficiaries would face a 25% benefit cut after 2037, if Congress does nothing. Yet under Simpson/Bowles, workers who earned $34,500 annually (that’s about half of Social Security recipients) would actually take a 35-41% cut! While Simpson/Bowles promise these benefit cuts will only impact high income earners, there’s a catch. Anyone who made $35,000 a year during their working years is considered a “high income” earner. Yes, that’s right. When it comes to raising the payroll tax, Simpson/Bowles worries that a .1% payroll hike phased in over decades might be too big a burden for workers making $100,000 a year, yet when it comes to benefit cuts you’re considered “upper income” if you earn a third of that. In short, a so-called “high income” worker making $35,000 can afford to pay their taxes and take a benefit cut but don’t expect those making six-figures to pay their share of payroll taxes.

Angry Bear describes it this way:

Coberly and I (and some others) have been warning for years about the dangers of turning Social Security from an insurance program with mild progressive transfers to a welfare system. Well this is a pure illustration of that, I can’t imagine any scheme designed to more undermine support for Social Security than one that calls for earners in the top 50% taking a cut even from the projected cut. The answer to a ‘crisis’ defined as an ultimate 25% cut in scheduled benefit is for upper income folk to take a 35-41% cut? All in an effort to save them a phased in 0.1% of payroll per year increase over the next 20 years?
National Committee Executive VP, Max Richtman, talked about the lack of balance in this proposal on Pacifica Radio’s Letters to Washington.

READ THE REST: http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/?p=1369

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. "Shared sacrifice" does not include the millionaires and billionaires. You know, the owners. nt

[HughBeaumont]

2. "Sacrifice" is for the PEONS.

"Don't even THINK about ruining OUR lives for one SECOND . . . 'Mr President' (snicker)" - "Our Betters"

[Bolo Boffin]

3. It means we get Social Security cuts, and the rich only get 13% off their taxes instead of 25%.

We're all just going to have to make do.

[rocktivity]

4. The real tragedy is, SocSec doesn't HAVE to be cut

There's nothing wrong with SocSec that raising or eliminating the salary cap can't fix.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[jtown1123]

5. Here Here!

[sasha031]

6. even Reagan did that

[LiberalFighter]

7. What we need is a campaign to eliminate the Social Security Tax cap.

Benefits should have a cap though. Use the current SS Tax Cap of $108,600 to determine maximum benefits.

Maybe even have it two tiered with taxes paid on amount up to $108,600 and half that over the amount.

[rocktivity]

9. Is that for a year or a lifetime?

:shrug:
rocktivity

[LiberalFighter]

10. If you mean the cap on basing benefits that should increase on an annual basis.

[rocktivity]

11. Whew--that's exactly what I hoped you meant. Thanks!

:fistbump:
rocktivity

[LiberalFighter]

13. Which do you think would be better? Or do you have another idea?

a) Totally eliminate the cap and everyone pays the full amount.

b) Change the cap definition and amounts below the cap pay the full Social Security while income above the cap is half.

[rocktivity]

17. Eliminate the cap, which would allow everyone to pay

a LOWER full amount.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[OHdem10]

8. It is very tempting to use SS Fund to help fix the deficit.

Social Security has its own source of funding. Social
Security could be fixed by raising the cap on what the
very wealthy pay. If absolutely necessary they could raise
age by no more than 2 years. Social Security could be
fixed separate from Deficit Reducation. If you are not
using funds to fix deficit, why was SS included.

I thought they reformed Medicare when they did Health Care???

[NoNothing]

14. Actually Social Security has the same source of funding as every other government program:

The U.S. taxpayer. The fact that it is *accounted* separately is, at the end of the day, meaningless because money is 100% fungible.

[glitch]

15. Social Security is seperate from the budget according to how it was legislated.

At the end of the day, laws are supposed to mean something.

[NoNothing]

16. Laws can't override fiscal reality

There is a limit to how much tax revenue can be raised. If there are X trillion dollars total *possible* tax dollars, and you use some of that $Y trillion amount for one thing, then the amount left for other things is $X-$Y, regardless of how the accounting goes.

Think of it like a household. A married couple both bring in a salary and they have to pay bills. Regardless of whether they pool everything together and pay out of the pool, or whether they keep separate accounts and decide on who pays what bills, the total amount of bills cannot exceed the total amount they earn, or the household is in serious trouble.

[zeemike]

12. Well they cut our benifits....so it is only fair

That the rich participate in this sacrifice by having their taxes cut...one cut deserves the other.

[felix_numinous]

18. I already made my 'shared sacrifice'

my tax dollars I thought would go toward social services and American infrastructure, but were then used for war against my will. My social security was taken out of my check with the agreement that it would support me in my elder years, but this agreement is now on the table without my consent. Agreements have been broken and the trust is now lost.

If the contracts made with Americans have to be litigated in order to remain in effect, then Americans need legal representation. It is as if we the people taking on the corporations in a massive legal suit is the only way we can get our rights back. Our representatives are unable to legally represent us.

[Igel]

19. I suspect the drasticness of the SS cuts results from two things.

First, they means test SS. Those above median would lose while those below median would gain. It's the same principle that most others like--those with more should pay more--except that it reaches deeper into the population. It's great to say that the top 5% should pay more because it doesn't affect many DUers; it's horrible to say it should affect the top 50% because that affects us.

Second, the SS Trust Fund runs dry, per predictions, in 2037. But the report doesn't consider just SS funds. The SS Trust Fund is full of debts; to expense any of the "money" held as assets requires replacing that debt with actual money. The only source of that money is general revenues: In other words, Congress can either buy the debt with money from taxes or buy the debt with money from issuing general debt obligations, i.e., increasing the deficit. The report is charged with reducing the deficit. It recommends not raising tax revenues as a percentage of GDP. The only solution left to the SS debt problem after ruling out increased taxes and increased deficit spending is to not call in the debt. That requires reducing SS benefits.

Most people seem to think that the debt held by the SS Administration can be bought out without using actual tax revenues, cutting general spending, or increasing the deficit.

[Samantha]

20. I can hear Limbaugh explaining why cutting SS will be a shared sacrifice

When social security is cut or phased out, the rich won't be able to borrow funds from it for purposes of "national security" because there will be nothing there.

The poor won't be able to access it, because there will be nothing there.

There won't be a middle class because it will be phased out.

Therefore, the cutting of social security will be a "shared sacrifice" between the rich and the poor.

Okay, am I ready yet to audition for Fox?

Sam

[Mimosa]

21. That's the latest meme

I think I saw it in an ad the other day.

[DailyGrind51]

22. That's all the poor and middle class have been doing these past 10 years,

the rich have sacrificed nothing and the wage disparity grows!

[Phx_Dem]

23. It begs the question, why did most seniors vote Republican

when they've stated clearly that they wanted to cut, privative or eliminate social security?

Dumb and dumber, I guess.