Democrats Could Learn Something From Bernie Sanders
Today, Sanders announced that he will introduce legislation that would strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits to any of its beneficiaries. Sanders’ legislation would eliminate the income cap that currently exists in the payroll tax that does not tax income above $106,800:
To keep Social Security strong for another 75 years, Sanders’ legislation would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. […] Under Sanders’ legislation, Social Security benefits would be untouched. The system would be fully funded by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with incomes up to $106,800 a year.
It is easy to explain and makes sense to every voter in American who does not make $106,800 per year.
Now that’s tax reform.
It is easy to explain and makes sense to every voter in American who does not make $106,800 per year.
Right, which is MOST people we know. And even still, why would a rich person want to live in a poor country?? That goes for all those poor saps who think that progressives want to socialize their under $250K incomes, somehow.
From the Constitution, Article I, Section 7:
Senator Sanders is blowing smoke up your butts: he can introduce such a bill, but it would be unconstitutional even if it was passed, because it did not originate in the House of Representatives.
That was a fuckface type comment that added nothing.
To the point of the post, let’s say that I stop paying into Soc. Sec. on or around February 1st. Is that fair?
philosophical question here.
We progressives think it is monstrous that conservatives have the opinions of “if you cant afford it, learn to live without it” in regard to education, health care, electricity, medicine, food, etc.
Recent conservative agendas show that they would take even more away from people “who have grown accustom to a certain lifestyle in order to pay the nation’s debts. We think that is wrong, in fact we think OTHER people should have their lifestyle taken away from them in order to pay the nation’s debts. I know a time share and 5 cars is not the same as being able to feed a family, but do ya see the philosophical disconnect here? People living the american dream who have worked hard all their life shouldn’t be punished because GWB couldnt figure out how to run a country.
I think the most important thing we can do is just enforce existing tax law. make GE and Exxon pay their fair share, go after not the households who make 250k per year (btw if a family has more than 3 kids…. as is their right to do… that aint much) but go after the people who make 200m a year who can hide it all in offshore accounts.
Also, a platform of “enforcing existing laws” is much more politically attractive than adding new laws to a government that cant do anything.
As far as I am concerned, Bernie Sanders is the only indisputable progressive in Congress. His solution of removing the cap as a way to solve the Social Security problem has been known for years. The notion that seniors have to live with less as the only way to “save” Social Security has been understood as poppycock by those who have advocated significantly raising, if not eliminating, the cap.
Socialistic Ben wrote:
Unless you know of actual corporate tax evasion, General Electric and Exxon do pay their fair share, as determined by the law.
Jason wrote:
If you’ve made $106,800 by January 31st, it will certainly be fair, and legal, too! 🙂
Social Security was supposed to be a retirement plan. If you believe it to be fair to raise or eliminate the maximum taxable Social Security earnings cap, wouldn’t it also be fair to pay those people who had to pay in millions in Social Security taxes millions in retirement benefits?
If you make $106,800 by January 31st you will probably be advised to take most of your compensation as stocks and options and you will pay no additional payroll tax, cap or not.
Dana, they are given even penny, and them some back by….. YOU. your taxes go to Exxon after you give them your hard earned money at the pump…. but feel free to continue voting for republicans who support that practice….
i know i know, if you really wanted to, you could start your own oil company and be just like them right?
Whoa Dana—SS was never to be a retirement “plan”. It was to be a bridge to fill in your own retirement plan. That’s what folks don’t understand. And it’s original inception calculated folks on average would only see about 13 months of SS benefits, before life moved on. NEVER was it intended to be the HUGE prop it is now, and people expect without paying a bigger chunk of front end dues. We need a huge US tutorial of just what SS is… or has become….THEN justify WHY we need to raise eligibility ages, or entry criteria, or be prepared to pony up fiercely on the front end. Great idea–but lousy execution nearly 70 years later.
We need a huge US tutorial of just what SS is… or has become
Fortunately there is just such a thing.
And it’s original inception calculated folks on average would only see about 13 months of SS benefits, before life moved on.
Not true:
Right on Ben. Corporate profits should be used to fund the safety nets that ordinary people need to have a decent life.
Puck–you better come up 20 years to 2010–women and men have never been so closely aligned in age expectancy to around age 80 now (within months). Just let me figure out all the links and stuff for a class I gave–I distributed bottles of “silver” vitamins to those in attendance (it was a baby boomer aging/medical highlights class). I have from my notes women in 1985 stood to be a widow 8 years back then if they married a man their same age–not so anymore. Even I was shocked at the gains we have made.
“It was to be a bridge to fill in your own retirement plan.”
That’s simply not correct. When it was enacted, 50% of the elderly lived in poverty. Most had no retirement plan. You’re thinking of 401(k) plans.
Joanne: You should also look up the statistics on life expectancy by income. The gains are for people in certain segments; they have not come across the board.
“SS was never to be a retirement “plan”. It was to be a bridge to fill in your own retirement plan. ”
For many people the next largest part of their “own retirement plan,” after Social Security/Medicare, is their house.
Nobody dreamed that America would float the entire economy for most of a decade on an artificial and corrupt housing bubble that would destroy the value of those homes, just to defend and maintain historic low taxes for the rich. That is unprecedented.
Geezer–I don’t think they had 401K plans in the late 30’s:) — it was designed for the average worker, retired thru age or disability to keep them out of the ol’ fashioned poorhouse, and the already poor at a subsistence level that our government could pat themselves on the back.
Just the notion that a non-contributing spouse was culturally accepted as “providing for the widow” her entire life, was only changed in the last what…15 years?
It’s the additions (and I’m not talking minor children), longevity, health exclusions, that get assigned to SS funding is way out of line w/ the funding stream.
And yes, extrapulating data to the drill-down of life-expectancy is the actuarial work of life insurance policies and underwriting, not SS. This is average American as reported……is what we’re issuing checks…not black male, raised in a ghetto…or white female, obese since 4, and diabetic since 9.
I know, I know,…the next question…what is an average American male/female? None of us will fit the description, but some more closely than others….to be continued….
Look up the history, Joanne. Very few had “retirement plans” in the 1930s. Most just kept working until they died. You can figure this out from the arguments made for and against SS. One of the pro-SS arguments was that if old workers had a source of funds, they would retire, opening up jobs for younger men.
I know very well they didn’t have 401(k)’s then. But when they were started, they were specifically supposed to supplement pension plans, not replace them. I thought perhaps you had gotten the stated purpose of the programs confused, because nobody made the argument you’re claiming back when SS started.
And yes, the funding stream needs supplementation. Which is where lifting the cap comes in.
Also in the 30s/40s the job of caring for the children and old folks fell to the women, who mostly did not work outside the home. So your daughter or your spinster niece was also part of your retirement plan.
Now that women work outside the home we place more expectations on Social Security and Medicare. This is how we take care of our parents in America. It should be celebrated as an achievement of civilization, not villainized. And it should be fully funded.
Agreed, syntax here— let me say “let go because of age or disability”-but I don’t ever remember the 401notOK plan being pitched as a supplement. IRAs, yes–but 401Ks were slipped in the back door as more of “everyones golden parachute” whoever owned one. Seriously.
But back to basic SS–wonderful intent–I want the cap lifted, but perhaps not before the huge scrutiny of eligibility criteria, and the age index moved to more fully reflect life expectancy.
It’s rather suspect when attorneys have 1-800 numbers and large practices dedicated to SS claims for pay-out. I don’t argue the initial intent of provisions to our seniors, minor children etc., and truly disabled. But making a case–repeatedly?…..gives me pause. And yes, I know there are exceptions–that may need some legal intervention–but c’mon ten gallon hats and spokespeople?
puck–no one is villianizing the stay at home of the 30s or 40s–but c’mon we all sit and rib my aunt who didn’t work a day after college graduation in ’53–and raised OUR generation of h.s. grads of 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s–and stood to collect full SS off of husband’s earnings. Think about it–she was an empty nester by age 40–never even having to think, about earning a thing in regards to credits etc. She did though at about age 53–go out the door part-time, out of interest. It lasted about 2 years.
That’s a whole different scenario for women from the 70’s on…than a 1942 mid-life homemaker who really had no options, and her homefront was her office. And she only lived to see some of her grandchildren. Please, some of my children comfortably knew 3 generations back–making them the 4th generation in a family photo.
I think the Obama plan to shore-up SS is to decrease life expectancy.
shorter life expectancy also means fewer first time unemployment claims. win/win
Yes, Joanne, it certainly would be awful for society to support your aunt to the lucrative tune of about $13,800 a year.
I will never understand the resentment of middle-class people for those below them on the economic ladder. The people to resent are the ones at the top who keep changing the laws so they stay there.
Geezer, the middle class resenting help for the lower classes is an interesting phenomenon, one that might distinctly American. Great recent article about it found here:
http://econ.st/qw0RsS
No Geez, not awful…but c’mon any mid to end baby boomer has had to worry about quarters, and end years earning collections. And remember, that aunt is of the golden parachute and handshake crowd….so homes are paid for, and entire second lives of leisure have been spent, enjoying excellent retirement health plans etc…
Why sure, I think a tidy 13.8k in “pin money” is sufficient to keep her at the bridge table.
It’s a whole new reality out there, and I just think we need to look,review, and retool a bunch.
The Ryan plan cuts those receiving social security today, every year as they get older. By the time a senior reaches 85, they will be cut by $1300 a year. Talk about death panels the repukes invented death panels. Everyone knows the older you get the more you more money, you will need not less. I know plenty of widowed women who want to stay in their homes, but cant because everything has gone up. Who really has 401K’s (they were demolished under the bush regime). Majority of social security folks have no other monies or investments. They used their money putting their kids in college. All they have now is a house which has devalued.
Joanne: your speaking of the upper middle class only.
“It’s a whole new reality out there, and I just think we need to look,review, and retool a bunch.”
I agree. The rich are going to have to start paying people a little more if they don’t want social unrest. Telling people to work until they’re 70 is not a realistic solution. It’s not a matter of whether they want to work. It’s a matter of getting or keeping a job at increasing ages.
I don’t see much point in having the world’s largest economy if the only ones benefiting from it anymore are the rich — and if you’d look up the numbers, you’d see they are indeed the only ones who have benefited in the past 30 years.
Every time we have listened to greed and allowed laissez-faire capitalism, it has ended badly. If the middle classes have to run as fast as they can just to stay in place, they have no reason to support the system.
If you’re just talking about means-testing for SS benefits, then I’m with you. But that won’t reap the revenue lifting the cap would.
The Social Security age should be lowered, not raised. I’d rather pay a little more to retire some geezers than to be competing against them in the job market and having them create a labor surplus that lowers wages for everyone.
Get those old folks into their rocking chairs and let some younger folks have a shot at their jobs.
Heck, that’s what a business would do – buy ’em out. “This year only – retire with full bennies at age 62!” Now there’s a stimulus.
Even a sustained upsurge in equities would encourage people to retire. I bet there is a lot of suppressed demand for retirement because they don’t want to cash in their pension funds just now.
Haven’t been on this site for a couple of months. Where did all the sociopaths come from, I’ll bet they’re paid to post this shit. Dana what an a**Hol* you are. My guess is you never did a day of work with your hands ever! I want to see you working as a 70 year old brick layer or iron worker. I wouldn’t buy anything you worked on at that age.
Find a good paying job these days after being laid off from our local multinational company that has given Ellen more money each year than they paid in Federal taxes because they bought Castle & Carper for years! And my tax rate is around %22.
Show up at Drinking Liberally in September and we can discuss our differences. Bet you won’t, at least not without a bodyguard.
I think there are some misunderstandings here. When you have stock options, you generally pay social security and medicare taxes and incoem taxes, not that you care about social security because you are probably over the limit. But when you discuss the fairness of people earning more than 106800 paying only up to the threshold, do you consider that social security was considered a contributory plan in that you get out theoretically what you pay in. Once you pay in 106800, you receive the maximum benefit. So how is it fair to ask the population which is over 106800 in earnings to pay in and not increase their own benefit but to subsidize someone else’s benefit?
It is only fair if you want an American society that is not red in tooth and claw, but is instead governed by a social contract. If you prefer a society that is locked into a hobbesian state of nature – then it is not fair.
If our goal is an America in which predatory animals unsentimentally devour prey animals, then having people pay into Social Security above their maximum benefit is an affront to the rough justice meted out by the laws of nature.
it all comes down to what kind of society we want to live in.
When you have stock options, you generally pay social security and medicare taxes and incoem taxes
This is not true. The IRS treats options 2 different ways: If the stock is already on the market and can be properly valued, then yes it is taxed as income at its fair market value. But for some future venture where the options cannot be fairly valued, then the options are not taxed at all until they are cashed in, and then they are taxed as capital gains (depending on how long they were held). Guess which way executives prefer to have their option-based compensation structured?
do you consider that social security was considered a contributory plan in that you get out theoretically what you pay in.
This is a popular misconception. Social Security has always been a plan where current workers pay for current beneficiaries. It is true that the ratio of contributors to beneficiaries has been increasing. This means we need to update the funding mechanism.
Jim wrote:
[laughter] That’s what you get for thinking in stereotypes. I run a concrete plant, Jim, and that includes running the loader, it includes shoveling under the conveyor belts, it includes greasing and maintaining the plant, it includes electrical and mechanical work, climbing cement silos, cleaning dust collectors and other labor work. I’ve run loaders, bulldozers, backhoes and bobcats, I’ve driven a truck, I’ve tied steel and worked on high steel in my life. As for being a “70 year old brick layer or iron worker,” at 58 I’m not all that far from it.
Puck wrote:
In the private sector, it would be called a Ponzi scheme, and that’s what landed Bernie Madoff in the penitentiary.
Actually, it is an annuity, not a Ponzi Scheme at all. You should learn the difference:
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/08/social-security-not-ponzi-scheme-venn-diagram
Then reform the funding mechanism until it is no longer a Ponzi scheme, if that’s what you believe. Taking off the cap would be a good start.
Social Security is a promise society has made to our parents. It is one of the glories of our society that we have managed to almost completely solve the problem of extreme poverty in old age. If its funding mechanism is inadequate for the 21st century, then the funding mechanism needs to be updated.
In the private sector, there is an expectation of profit. But in the public sector, there is only the expectation of human decency. I don’t expect Republicans to understand that.
Especially a Republican who calls Social Security a ponzi scheme while riding around on his medicare paid rascal scooter.
Any pile of money that is large enough becomes a target for Republicans to steal, no matter what its intended use. Social Security is no exception.
republicans are simply incapable of accepting that the whole can do anything good for the whole because they are all* greedy bastards who steal candy from kids. Luckily most americans are not conservative republicans and have an interest in helping people they do not know.
It is impossible for them to realize that people can pay money in to something, others can get money out of it and they somehow arent allowed to profit from it.
SB, it isn’t just republicans.
naw. I think dems either want to help people, or realize that IF they help people the will get votes, and contributions and free vacations…. charlie rangle rings a bell. Republicans want no part of helping people who dont go to their church.
Dana,
I’m sure your post at 8:17 on a Wednesday morning came while you were reading this blog sitting in your internet ready front end loader waiting for it to warm up.
At 58 you’ve paid into SS for many, many years. You willing to give that away so GWB could give the banksters a big raise & bonus?
Let’s talk, not about f’ing fee trade agreements, but about enforcing the “made in America” laws that are still on the books, let’s talk about bringing back the tariffs that kept our country’s people working for almost two hundred years until Ronnie Raygun decided that government was our problem and started to dismantle it, or worse yet, bring in people so stupid that they made government look bad? Heckuva job Brownie.
Why are you working against your own best interests? If we don’t have roads and bridges that your trucks can use to deliver your concrete, where does your living come from?