I like the idea of means testing for social security

[Beer Snob-50]

If when you retire you are getting 50,000/year from various sources you should get less than if you are getting 20,000/year.

[DinahMoeHum]

1. 50,000/year, 20,000/year. Before or after taxes ???

This why whatever Bush proposes for Social Security is a sick joke.

President Bait-And-Switch is at it again.

Best to read the fine print, people.



:evilfrown:

[ibid]

14. Poverty programs mean no program for middle class - and then GOP cuts

the poverty program.

How many times must this happen before "means testing" social security is 100% rejected by the left?

[AllegroRondo]

2. The downside

it changes SS from an insurance program into an income redistribution program. Which lets Repubs say "I paid into this system for 40 years and you just want to give it all to unemployed welfare moms!!!!!"

[Beer Snob-50]

4. My idea keeps SS as an insurance program.

Most people can live happily in retirement on that kind of money ( 50K after taxes).

[lukasahero]

3. According to Krugman it's also just a way to squeeze the middle class

The truly rich will not be affected. The middle class will bear the brunt.

[Zynx]

5. Means testing is a Republican screen to make the system unpopular

Then they can kill it.

[ginnyinWI]

20. exactly.

If it becomes an entitlement program for the poor only, it is doomed.

[rurallib]

6. Maybe true but

when everyone is treated the same, then you get a large group with a common denominator. If some get different rates than others, groups can be segregated and their particular benefit can be isolated and effed with without the other groups being concerned. Eventually all can be screwed with without a large enough bloc to stop it. That's what they do to welfare recipients.
Also, the bottom group doesn't get more, they just don't get cut, so the total pie is smaller. When privatization fails, the pie will get much smaller and they can attack each stratas benefit separately.
But it SOUNDS so good until you give it some deep thought.
NCLB sounds good too, until you realize its logical conclusion is to starve the public school system into a ghetto for the very poor students.

[liveoaktx]

7. Jim Moran on Means Testing

Why Means Testing Guts the whole program

[MichiganVote]

8. Anybody who paid in should get paid. Period.

[sandnsea]

9. We had this argument 20 years ago

When people thought it was ridiculous that very wealthy people, like Ronald Reagan, were collecting social security checks. That's how we ended up with a tax on social security when people earned over a certain income. People thought it was fair 20 years ago. It just got spun against Kerry as "voted to tax social security".

When will we learn not to listen to them. They're racketeers out to destroy the working class.

[Nite Owl]

10. It would just make it

an unpopular welfare program. And that 50k, it doesn't go so far in NY or CA as it would it in a red state.

[thecrow]

11. All my life I have paid into the SS system

with the promise that I would get it back at retirement.
I want that promise kept.
Too many people over 70 are STILL WORKING while on SS.... There is a woman at my office who is 73 but she still has to work.
What she makes is monitored by SS and if she makes too much they cut her off. Is this fair?

I am really pissed that Bu$h's plan has a cutoff birthdate of 1/1/1950. I was born in March 1950. So I should expect only 40% from SS?
I'm sorry, but this is wrong. I don't want to be 73 or 75 and still working.
I agree with Jim Moran's statement in the video.

[eallen]

12. It's quite difficult to do means testing in any fair way...

Consider X, who has a retirement income of $18,000 and Y, who has a retirement income of $48,000. Clearly, Y is richer than Y. Over two and a half times as rich. Right?

Maybe not. X owns his own house, free and clear. Y pays $1,600 rent for a modest house for he and his wife. It takes him $30,000 of gross income -- before taxes! -- just to pay rent. Remove that from the equation, and he is on par with X. Well, really to compare apples to apples, I'd have to figure X's property taxes. The point, though, is that people who are retired can live at the same level, with wide trade-offs between assets and income. Any system to figure that out will be pretty damned intrusive. Merely looking at income, which already is intrusive, won't do it.

[ceusi]

13. I remember 20 years ago

I remember cool, intelligent heads, back then, pointing out that the strength of SS was that everyone had a stake in it. It was not a "welfare program" and therefore it had a chance of survival.

In the mean time we've had welfare reform, HMOs, the gutting of pensions, IRAs and 401(k)s after the dot-com bubble burst, No Child Left Behind and Head Start have never been fully funded, etc.

So many examples of the financial equation changing to benefit the wealthy, whether through outright gain, or through tax cuts that should have gone to programs, or economic risk.

And still SS keeps moving along unchanged. I think we need to keep this history in mind. The question is not "Is it fair?" The queation is "Is it alive?" Or something similar, but catchier and more articulate.

The fairness issue, to me, would be addressed by raising the $90,000 cap and still having a modest payout, even for the big contributors. They can use 401(k)s and IRAs to stay super rich.

My memory is weak on all this, but weren't IRAs the "ownership" option they chose instead of means testing SS?

[stray cat]

15. Bush is talking about cutting benefits for almost all of us.

He is using means testing to try to make it sound better than it is. It is a benefit cut for anyone making more than 20-25,000. Once it is inacted the middle class and wealthy won't want to pay in to what will be perceived as a welfare program when they could invest their social security taxes into their own retirement plans. Also will employers continue to pay in their share?

[cestpaspossible]

16. Skip the means test and eliminate the cap.

Everyone pays, everyone collects.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

17. Excuse me, but please clarify an important point for me

Because Bush framed his argument with "wage earners" at certain levels I assumed he meant that present income was defining future benefits. If you are retired, you are not usually earning wages or SS benefits are ALREADY discounted if wages are being earned ( this is why some older workers are so concerned about earning too much.)

So, is he talking about present wages defining your future benefits, or is he talking about retirement "income" which could be from many other sources - dividends, private pensions, etc. Big difference. I really need to know.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

18. It's already means-tested...

If you're single and earned more than 24,000 per year, 50% of your benefits are taxable. If you earn more than $34,000 per year, 85% of the benefits become taxable. However you slice it, recipients are expected to give back part of their benefit.

[sandnsea]

21. I think they cut that

That was the compromise we made back in the 80's when people got upset that Reagan was collecting social security. It got twisted around in this last election to "Kerry voted to tax social security". I'm pretty sure I read that Congress recently cut the social security taxation. That's how they manipulate things around and the younger generation doesn't know, and the older one forgets, why things are the way they are in the first place.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

22. If they've don't it, it's news to me...

I'm an Enrolled Agent with the IRS.

[Yupster]

24. Plus the payout formula's bendpoints

are also very progressive which pretty much means tests it a second time.

[Sub Atomic]

19. my suggestion

is to eliminate the cap entirely and tie benefits to wages.

[w4rma]

23. Not under 90K, tho. Above 90K, sure - they don't currently pay tho. (nt)