Payroll tax cuts = Obama's second assault on Social Security

[eridani]

http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/media/blog/2010/president-obamas-payroll-tax-holiday-could-unravel-social-security

A 2% payroll tax cut, if unfunded from general revenue, doubles the 75-year projected shortfall projected by the actuaries in the 2010 Trustees Report.

Repaying the Social Security trust fund $120 billion each year will be increasingly more difficult in a political environment dominated by debates over federal deficits and debt; this could result in a huge revenue drain to Social Security.

Keeping the payroll tax cut in place but not paying Social Security back will lead to massive benefits cuts, even as the population rapidly ages.

It would make the goal of improving benefits for low-wage workers all the more difficult.

The only other option will be to cut benefits of the middle class. Because only 6% of the work force makes over $106,800 and because the benefit formula is highly progressive, even eliminating the benefits of richer Americans will not make much difference in solvency.

Making up for the $120 billion of lost annual revenue, plus eliminating the already existing long-term shortfall, will require deep cuts in benefits for the middle class and erode its support.

[tabatha]

1. Ms Pelosi, please fix this and all the other bad stuff.

[dennis4868]

2. Ezra Klein says no need to fix that....

see link....http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/12/the_payroll_tax_cut_social_sec.html

[eridani]

5. Klein is a fucking neoliberal tool

Raise the goddam cap, already!

[somone]

3. A clear indication that Obama is joining the GOP in their attack on Social Security

This plan is their Trojan horse to kill the New Deal

[Hardrada]

4. Thoughts on Obama

Wow! I was wondering how they were going to wind up the rest of American social progress and the remainder of the New Deal.

I have to take my hat off to the people who thought up a treacherous candidate like Obama. It is just a perfect play. Distract the Democrats with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party (who are now unnecessary). while the Great Hero creeps up and knifes them in the back. Obama was a mole! A plant! It was an amazing ploy and it brings to an end (together with the vile Supreme Court decision) to functioning democracy in the U.S. and turns the governing system into an outright plutocracy (or kleptocracy if you prefer). This latest give-away to the billionaires will blow a hole in the budget which will entail sacrificing the social programs (and provide an excuse for gutting Medicare and Medicaid) and it will have the complete approval of all the media (owned by the plutocrats of course). Anyway, this is the end of the 30 year war on the American labor and middle classes and is a complete victory for the Ruling Elite.

I just wonder who put Plan Obama into effect and who had the idea in the first place. Also planned in advance was the structure of an American police state with all the details of the so-called Patriot Act just in case anyone doesn’t like the New American Order. Very well thought out but it won’t save US or global capitalism in the end. Capitalism can be ended militarily of course or by massive General Strikes (not too likely) but certainly by the end of Oil which will come around in a few decades if not sooner. U.S. capitalism is so vested in oil and nuclear power that it won’t be able to change course to sustainable energy in time as far as I can see. China is way ahead of us on that.



Now one problem in all this is that a weakened system of democracy and leaders like Obama (who are perceived as weak though they do the bidding of the oligopoly) is one of the preconditions for fascism. So is deadlock in government which is what we would have right now if Obama had any principles. But so is an economic crisis which we have now with the massive unemployment. Beware also an elite which might feel threatened by events (look how they are responding to Wikileaks) and might want a dynamic political movement on their side and would financially support it (as it happening now to some extent). Howard Zinn said a weak executive is a real danger at this time to democracy. How much more is a traitorous one who is arrogant to boot? We’ll be lucky if this all doesn’t devolve into a USSR-style collapse and/or resultant civil war. We could easily become five or six nations and I could think of one part of the US I wouldn’t miss at all. At any rate such is my analysis (or part of it) on our current situation which is serious indeed. Obama was Orwellian about Hope but not about Change.

[eridani]

6. Sad, but true n/t