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April 24, 2007
I stand corrected!
A few years ago I took a serious look at the Social Security problem during the Republicans last grand stand to destroy it. I did the math and amputating the arm to get a splinter out of the finger just didn't make sense to me. I know crazy using that math thing, I should just have faith in the radical right to do it for me. Well two years have past and we get the report from the Social Security Administration saying:
Social Security could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years in various ways, including an immediate increase of 16 percent in payroll tax revenues or an immediate reduction in benefits of 13 percent or some combination of the two.
Atrios is nice enough to do the hard math for me.
Roughly, this would require increasing both the employee and employer share of the tax from 6.2% to 7.05%.
Which means my calculations for needing a 3.0% increase to cover the short fall was a bit aggressive. In my defense I was using Republican numbers to do the calculations with so it's likely they were falsified. So we can fix everything with a .85% increase. For some perspective for the average person making minimum wage of $5.15 that would represent a nickel more an hour paid to receive full benefits promised by the social security program. It will be six cents an hour when the minimum wage goes up to $7.25, which seems like a good time to include the bump up, when you're already giving everyone a raise at the same time. Just a suggestion. Actually the more important idea is to raise the limits on income covered by Social Security payments. It's really a regressive tax on the poor right now and that's just not right. The wealthy need to start paying their fair share of the burden to improve everyone's quality of life.
So ask yourself, do you really want to throw granny out in the street for a nickel?
Posted by Jamison at April 24, 2007 6:28 AM
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Comments
If the government simply lifted the upper limit cap of $91,000 income for everyone, and made ALL income taxable at the 6% rate, this would fix everything that the current system suffers shortfalls on. It would also help make the rich pay their fair share of the benefits they end up receiving from the system, instead of sucking out more than they contributed for. Check it out.
Posted by: Conspiracy Theorist at October 11, 2007 4:38 PM
If the government simply lifted the $91,000 cap on taxable SS income, and made ALL income taxable, this would singlehandedly solve all of the SSA's problems. It would also make the rich people foot their fair share of the bill. Check it out!
Posted by: Conspiracy Theorist at October 11, 2007 4:47 PM