As the political season heats up, it's time for those of us interested in the issue of Social Security reform to take a look at the current crop of presidential candidates. Of course, at the same time, we cannot take our eyes off the Congressmen and women. Even when we had a president willing to look at private accounts, e.g., Presidents Clinton and Bush, the Congress remained adamantly opposed. Think it has anything to do with the power to buy our votes that the ability to manipulate the present system provides? Or perhaps, it is the pot of money which is spent "off the books." that makes them so reluctant to take any meaningful action.
So what is being proposed? Let's start with two of the front runners. Barack Obama and John Edwards have expressed a willingness to raise or eliminate the cap on wages. That would be an enormous increase in the amount of taxes collected without a commensurate assurance that the money would actually be available to pay benefits.
"Eliminating the cap on payroll taxes would be, by far, the biggest tax hike in U.S. history: more than $1.3 trillion in new taxes over the first 10 years alone. As bad as that would be in the aggregate, it would be even worse for individual workers. A worker earning $103,000 per year would pay $1,240 more in taxes each year." http://www.socialsecurity.org/
Unfortunately, none of the other candidates has been willing to make any specific proposal. So much for profiles in courage.
Save Social Security Now
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Now is the time
Maybe privatizing SS failed because that's NOT what the public wants. Ideas do matter yanno...
To increase earnings, perhaps Congress should change the law & allow a portion of the SS Trust Fund to be invested in the market. Then increase the % over time until it reaches a cap of say 50% of the funds. That would also expose the true amount of the federal deficit.
Post a Comment