Better Believe It (1000+ posts) Mon Aug-16-10 11:25 PMhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8959535
Original message
The real reasons why corporate America wants to destroy Social Security and Medicare
There’s Nothing Wrong with Social Security that Taxing the Rich Fairly Wouldn’t Fix
by Dave Lindorff
August 16, 2010
The ideologues at places like the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation are providing the intellectual justification for destroying Social Security, but the real opposition to Social Security, though, is corporate America, as represented by groups like the Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce (it's corporate America that funds those foundations and their resident "scholars," after all). And the reason for this corporate opposition is that Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes paid by workers are both matched, dollar for dollar, by employers. If you pay 6.2% of your income in taxes to the Social Security Administration each year, so does your boss, and if the income cap is lifted for workers it will also be lifted for employers. That means a bigger tax bill for the company, and of course personally for the managers and board members.
So let's at least be honest in this coming battle over "saving" Social Security. It is nothing less than a war between bosses and workers.
The system is not in trouble because it's too generous or because it is underfunded. It has been pilfered over the years by politicians who have been unwilling to raise taxes to fund America's wars, or to fund the programs that we Americans say we want, like better roads, grants for local schools, etc. Instead of telling us what things cost, they borrow (steal) money from the Social Security Trust Fund, and then tell us Social Security is in trouble.
And now, as a day of reckoning approaches, they pretend it's all our fault. They say we want too much in benefits, or that we want to retire too early. But the truth is, we deserve decent retirement income, and we deserve to retire at 65 or even 62. In fact, if we hang onto our jobs until 70 or 72, as these hacks and the lobbyists for corporate American want us to do, it'll just be that harder for our kids to get jobs and move out of the house!
This is not about a private pension fund that's going bust. It's about a public pension program that has been raided, that has never been adequate, and that needs to be bolstered now by a tax on the rich. Nothing elaborate mind you. They just need to pay at the same rate that the rest of us do.
Read the full article at:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/16-7
Better Believe It (1000+ posts) Mon Aug-16-10 11:31 PM
Response to Original message
1. How the rich pay into Social Security at a lower tax rate than the rest of us.
The writer explains how the rich don't pay into the Social Security fund at the same tax rate as the rest of us when he points out:
"At present, every worker in America pays the same percentage of income into the Social Security Trust Fund--currently 6.2% of the first $106,800 of earnings. Since everyone pays at that rate, whether they earn $10,680 a year or $106,800 a year, that would be a flat tax, except that it's not. Because once someone earns more than $106,800 in a year, the tax rate falls off precipitously. After that cap, which is adjusted upward a little bit each year to account for inflation, there is no SSI tax on additional money earned. In other words, if someone earns $106,800.00, she or he pays $6,621.60 into the Trust Fund, but if that worker earns $107,000, or $313,600 a year, the tax is still just $6,621.60. For the person earning twice the income cap of $313,600, that means an SSI tax rate of only 3.1%. For someone earning 10 times the cap, or $1.680 million, the tax rate is only 0.62%."
The system is not in trouble because it's too generous or because it is underfunded. It has been pilfered over the years by politicians who have been unwilling to raise taxes to fund America's wars, or to fund the programs that we Americans say we want, like better roads, grants for local schools, etc. Instead of telling us what things cost, they borrow (steal) money from the Social Security Trust Fund, and then tell us Social Security is in trouble.
rve300 (126 posts) Tue Aug-17-10 02:44 AM
Response to Original message
12. If you think that an employer pays half.....
and it does not come out of the employee's pocket in the end, then you have a very naive view of business budgeting.
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Better Believe It (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-17-10 09:17 AM
Response to Reply #12
16. You mean employers would automatically give us that money in pay if they didn't pay the taxes?
Edited on Tue Aug-17-10 09:18 AM by Better Believe It
I think bib business would keep that "windfall" for themselves.
And so does everyone else who isn't naive.
I have a close friend who is the CFA for a company. She says they would bonus that money out to the owners if they didn't have to pay the taxes.
There is some severe post recycling going on over there. Bot or sock puppets? Just sayin.
This exchange is an example.
Only the names change.
Better Believe It
1. How the rich pay into Social Security at a lower tax rate than the rest of us.
The writer explains how the rich don't pay into the Social Security fund at the same tax rate as the rest of us when he points out:
"At present, every worker in America pays the same percentage of income into the Social Security Trust Fund--currently 6.2% of the first $106,800 of earnings. Since everyone pays at that rate, whether they earn $10,680 a year or $106,800 a year, that would be a flat tax, except that it's not. Because once someone earns more than $106,800 in a year, the tax rate falls off precipitously. After that cap, which is adjusted upward a little bit each year to account for inflation, there is no SSI tax on additional money earned. In other words, if someone earns $106,800.00, she or he pays $6,621.60 into the Trust Fund, but if that worker earns $107,000, or $313,600 a year, the tax is still just $6,621.60. For the person earning twice the income cap of $313,600, that means an SSI tax rate of only 3.1%. For someone earning 10 times the cap, or $1.680 million, the tax rate is only 0.62%."
But the truth is, we deserve decent retirement income, and we deserve to retire at 65 or even 62.Everything in a capsule right there. No need to even comment.
From the copy pasted article:
Everything in a capsule right there. No need to even comment.
Hey AR, how come you drop f bombs all day long, but substitute "shirt" for "shit?" I've always wondered. Not being snarky, just curious.