Where we are headed

[thewiseguy]

Something has got to be done. :(

[cliffordu]

1. Death panels!!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. .

[Romulox]

3. Just wait 'til DU's "Marxists" come in and scream that SS must NEVER be made progressive

:eyes:

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. The moment SS is means-tested for eligibilty --

-- the payments are already keyed to one's earnings -- is the moment it starts to die.

Means-tested programs are always vulnerable because those with the ability to cut them -- the well-off -- have the political chops to do it, and the financial resources to survive the cuts.

We're supposed to be fighting for universal health care, and fighting against a minimum standard of universal retirement income at the same time?

[Romulox]

8. So let's devote all of government's resources to the rich, lest they withhold support...

Oh wait, that's what we already do, and we've cut the taxes of the rich so much that we resemble a third world nation in many respects.

When do think we will have sacrificed enough such that the rich won't be so greedy towards us? :silly:

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. That's not what I meant, and you know it -- tendentious rubbish. n/t

[Romulox]

10. Your argument is equally applicable to Progressive Taxation, WIC, Unemployment--any benefit

If the rich don't get the lion's share of any government benefit they will tend to oppose it. So why not just end Progressive Taxation altogether?

[Davis_X_Machina]

13. Social Security has been saved, time and time again...

...as recently as 2005/6, precisely because it is considered by the electorate to be an earned-benefits program, and not a means-tested social provision like TANF and WIC. I know it's social insurance, and you know it's social insurance, but that's not the way it's perceived by the larger, voting, public. To them, you pay in, you take out. You pay in, you get stiffed isn't a viable political model. I don't mind Warren Buffett being able to draw SS, if it's the price to be paid for widespread popular support.

The state of Maine brought in a state-run, public health insurance option a few years ago. At first entry was supposed to be open to everyone who either lacked insurance, or didn't like what they had. Since then it's been a death spiral of stricter entrance requirements, less coverage, and reduced funding. Now it's gone from a bold experiment in universal health care to just another welfare program.

Social provisions work best when they're universal, even if it means that the price of political cover for them is that the undeserving rich see some money too. Otherwise you're relying on the undeserving rich's sense of social justice and equity, and that's generally not a good idea.

[Romulox]

14. If the American Public is not educatable, then there is no hope.

Again, what stops this insiduous manipulation of perceptions as to Progressive Taxation overall? I've never had a proponent of our current, regressive Social Security scheme even attempt to explain the distinction...

"Social provisions work best when they're universal"

Social Security isn't universal. Neither is Medicare. We have over 40 million uninsured persons in the US, for example, and no real system of "public assistance" for able bodied adults.

[Davis_X_Machina]

15. How is Social Security presently regressive...

...apart from the cap on FICA? I don't have a problem with lifting the FICA cap, in fact it would go a long way towards correcting the long-term budgeting issues you addressed.

[Romulox]

16. It taxes 100% of lower income Americans income, but a much lower % of the wealthy's income.

That is the definition of "regressive taxation".

"apart from the cap on FICA?"

That's like asking about a major body of water between the US and the UK (apart from the Atlantic Ocean)!

"I don't have a problem with lifting the FICA cap, in fact it would go a long way towards correcting the long-term budgeting issues you addressed."

People who argue this point on this board generally oppose both a lift of the cap, and means testing. The reason for this is that they are two sides of the same coin. If you eliminate or raise the cap, you must either raise the benefit or else you've shattered this illusion that Social Security is a savings account.

So logically, there is virtually no difference between lifting the cap while keeping the benefits the same or keeping the cap and implementing a means test--both will result in the shattering of this bogus conception of Social Security as a bank account. As a result, proponents of the "don't anger the rich" argument tend to vociferously argue against both proposals.

[Davis_X_Machina]

17. Not necessarily...

If you eliminate or raise the cap, you must either raise the benefit or else you've shattered this illusion that Social Security is a savings account.

I don't see the connection. It's as if my account balance at the credit union must go up because my neighbor won Powerball and banked his winnings. It will make the CU healthier as a whole, to be sure, but what's my claim on his winnings, apart from taxation?

[Romulox]

19. You are delinking contributions from benefits. It's two paths to the same end.

"It's as if my account balance at the credit union must go up because my neighbor won Powerball and banked his winnings. "

Powerball winnings don't come from the taxes of current workers. Social Security benefits for the rich do.

[Davis_X_Machina]

23. SS benefits to the rich...

...come from the rich, albeit only to the extent they're pre-FICA cap, and as for the rest, I agree with you that the FICA cap is indefensible.

I would be heartily in favor of some explicitly redistributive, means-tested supplement to OASDI, paid by higher taxes on the wealthy or a stock transfer tax. The demise of the company-provided guaranteed-benefit pension, the failure of the 401(k) experiment, and the prospect that future retirees may have a half-dozen or more different employers over their working lives suggests that a fully-treansportable individual federal pension plan is worth looking at as well.

But I wouldn't want to push for either as a replacement for SS as it presently exists.

[Romulox]

25. No, you're mistaken about this: "SS benefits to the rich come from the rich..."

The only source of SS benefits is taxes on the wages of current workers. There is no "lock box", nor have the contributions of retirees been saved anywhere.

I repeat: the one and only source of benefits to current retirees (of all economic classes) are taxes on the wages of current workers. One of the basic tensions of the SS security system is that this concept of an "investment account" can not be reconciled with the fact that Social Security is "pay as you go"--in other words, based on an inter-generational compact whereby the present generation pays for the previous one.

But by no means are current benefits drawn from past contributions--those contributions have all been long spent.

[Cleita]

20. DU Marxists? Oh, brother.

I guess common sense and proven failure in that type of thinking is Marxist.

[Romulox]

One poster, in particular, and a few persons around her orbit...

I don't use "Marxist" as an idle insult (I think Marx got the diagnosis 100% correct, fwiw.)

[Romulox]

24. Edit. Another dupe. nt

[Terry in Austin]

4. By 2052?

Lots of long-term assumptions here about federal revenues and expenditures -- like whether there's even going to be any "federal" by then, just for starters.

On a more positive note, if all the federal revenues are going for social well-being at that point, it means we will have found a way to cut the military crap!

;-)

[doc03]

5. There is one way out of it "inflation" n/t

[Laelth]

6. It's obvious that Medicare and Medicaid are the problem.

A single-payer system will fix that ... quickly.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Cleita]

21. Huh! Med. & SS are only the problems when the conservatives come up with their

fuzzy math charts.

[mmonk]

11. Entitlements?

Where could we cut? Here's a chart. How about cutting some of that shown in the pink?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/4/21/115525/153

[Cleita]

22. Entitlements is a RW code word, isn't it?

When you pay into a program, shouldn't you receive benefits when you qualify for them? It means you are entitled to what is yours, however, the conservatives have turned it into a dirty word meaning all those old people are on the dole with everyone else's hard earned money and it's ruining our economy. George Bush ruined the economy. You have to be dumb as a fence post not to see where the blame lies.

[scheming daemons]

12. Obama will be starting his 12th term by then

...according to Republicans.

[Cleita]

18. If they keep letting the for profit corporations keep taking corporate welfare

through these programs, they will drain the trusts dry. However, your source is suspect if it's from the Heritage Foundation.