Let's talk more about the morality of cutting Soc. Security AND taxes for corporations and the rich.

[coti]

In moral terms, how would you describe forcing those who live by nickels and dimes, on fixed budgets, to cut back on their already meager spending (so as to "reduce the deficit"), while simultaneously continuing to cut taxes for millionaires, billionaires and multi-billion-dollar corporations who have been sitting on and/or playing speculative games with their money for the past 8-10 years instead of creating jobs?

[county worker]

1. What would Jesus do?

[coti]

7. Kick! nt

[DJ13]

2. Our political leaders are tone deaf & brain dead

Talking about reducing SS COLA's after no COLA's for two straight years is a slap in the face to seniors.

Adding insult to injury by simultaneously reducing corporate tax rates shows just where the priorities of the political class lie.

[TBF]

3. Start with a conversation on the morality of Capitalism,

and the rest will follow.

[coti]

5. Even economically, is this a smart plan?

Will this promote or weaken consumer spending?

Will this lead to more jobs?

[caty]

4. The problem is the

word "morality". A moral person believes that if they do something wrong, all they have to do is ask for God's forgiveness and then expects everyone else to forgive him. An ethical person knows that if they do something wrong, they will not be forgiven until they do something to pay for it or make up for it in some way.

It's real easy to do things that are wrong when all you have to do is ask for forgiveness. Moral politicians are reckless with our lives. Give me an ethical group of politicians. Moral politicians have nothing to lose.

[leftstreet]

6. +1

[ljm2002]

8. "Repugnant".

That is how I would describe it in moral terms.

[coti]

14. Good word. nt

[dkf]

9. Actually this is what it takes to support SS obligations and keep it neutral.

These cuts are simply adjusted for the decreasing number of Workers we will have to support each retiree. We don't have the birth rate to make up for the increase in retirees so unless we demand more and more from individual workers we will need to decrease benefits to retirees.

Yet this will create a floor to make sure no senior is below the poverty rate. Right now we don't have a minimum that can keep a retiree out of poverty.

It looks to me that they are looking to make sure social security keeps people at a subsistence level but does not provide a comfortable retirement of any sort. They are depending on us to do that for ourselves.

[alstephenson]

10. Sounds like right wing talking points.

Wouldn't SS be solvent if the I.O.U.s from the government were repaid?

[dkf]

13. The surplus now keeps SS solvent for 27 years. The proposed changes keep it solvent for 75 years.

But what it really does is take in more from higher income workers, promise them less in retirement, and give low income workers who didn't contribute as much a minimum benefit higher than they would have gotten.

This does much more to redistribute from higher income workers to lower income workers and there are hardship provisions which lower income workers who are more likely to do manual labor, may require.

[Faryn Balyncd]

16. Should not redistribution be financed from GENERAL revenues (income taxes) to which super-wealthy...

...also contribute, rather than from the payroll taxes of the middle class?






A trust fund baby with a $1,000,000 annual income of 100% capital gains pays 15% capital gains tax + 3.8% Medicare tax, for a top marginal tax rate of 18.8%.

Meanwhile, a middle class American earning $106,800/year pays a marginal income tax rate of 28%, plus FICA tax of 12.4% (whether this is paid as a 12.4% self-employment tax, or as double 6.2% deductions from wages, the tax burden is identical) and Medicare tax of 2.9% on his/her entire income, for a total federal marginal tax rate of 43.3%.

Social Security is meaningless to the trust fund baby with $1,000,000 annual income.

But Social Security is an important part of retirement for the middle class American earning $100,000 or so a year.

Yet the Simpson/Bowles Commission wants to turn Social Security into a redistribution system FINANCED BY REGRESSIVE PAYROLL TAXES from which the great majority of the income of the super-wealthy is EXEMPT, and wants to stick it to the middle class.



The Simpson/Bowles proposal would slash SS benefits to those who have, in good faith, paid payroll taxes into the system for 50 years, and who need Social Security as well as their savings for a secure retirement.

Should not we honor those promises, support a strong middle class, and finance needed assistance to lower income Americans through taxes which come from GENERAL tax revenues (income taxes) to which the super-wealthy also pay, rather than from the regressive payroll taxes that hit the middle class but exempt the great bulk of the income of the super-wealthy?

[eridani]

18. The only thing necessary to make SocSec solvent forever--

--is to eliminate the FICA cap.

[eridani]

17. This is so full of shit that it borders on the totally delusional

By your logic, we should all be starving because of the dramatic reduction in the number of farmers as a percentage of the population over the past 70 years. Non-farm productivity has dramatically increased as well. According to the Bureau of labor statistics ( http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm ), 1947-1973 productivity gains were 2.8%/year, 1973-1979 gains were 1.1%/year, 1979-1990 gains were 1.4%/year, 1990-2000 gains were 2.1%/year, 2000-2007 gains were 2.6%/yearand 2007-2009 gains were 2.3%/year. Taking 1947 as a baseline year of 100, a quick spreadsheet calculation gives an increase to 396 over 62 years! If workers are 4 times more productive, we don't need as many to support the needs of the population. Given the distinct possibility that there will not have been a single net job added to the economy between the years of 2000 and 2015, how can anyone possibly say that the main problem facing our economy is that we don’t have enough workers?

Besides which, the ratio of total number of dependents (retirees plus children) to workers will actually be significantly lower in 2030, the year Social Security is supposed to melt down, than it was in 1960, before the baby boom entered the work force. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1381

In addition, the increase in longevity is not a persuasive reason for raising the retirement age. Most of the increase is due to lower death rates at very early ages. Moreover, the increase is very unevenly distributed. For lower income women, longevity is actually decreased. Needless to say, low income women are by far more likely to have Social Security provide most of their income in old age.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13746-no-southern-comfort-as-life-expectancy-falls.html

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/tables/2002/02hus030.pdf On average, life expectancy at 65 years (the only number that matters—not life expectancy from birth) is up just 3.5 years for males and up 4.2 years for females.

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. It's also stupid from a practical sense.

This country got strong because of a vibrant middle class. The wealthy don't just want more than you, they want it all.

...Until they realize that there's an even bigger fish.

FDR saved capitalism BY creating the middle class.

[coti]

12. Absolutely, you nailed it. nt

[coti]

15. Kick nt