@74. Chris:
Where’s the money coming from for the massive future ss, medicare and medicaid deficits, genius?
Tax revenue, where else?
Oh, I get it, just raise taxes and means test to raise the trillions. And of course there will be no supply or GDP effect because everyone knows you’re just as incentivized and work just as hard when your marginal tax rates go up to 65 or 70 percent. (Or beyond.)
Higher income taxes seem to be associated with improved economic growth ever since the income tax was enacted. By collecting payroll taxes on all personal income, social security is made less regressive. Marginal tax rates would not need to exceed 50% – a level that has never been shown to reduce GDP growth. Incentives to collect excessive personal income are not necessarily the best policy to encourage reinvestment of profits – the real driver of GDP growth. And means testing is just common sense.
The blissful world of innumeracy … Must be nice, David S.
Yeah, I’m sure it’s wonderful to ignore the simple inequities that make social security appear to be in danger. Did you ever wonder why social security taxes don’t apply to the outsize incomes popular with white collar folks? It’s not really very complicated. Collect payroll tax on all personal income – why not?
@75. venividivici:
I already know his reply will contain some version of “In the 1950’s marginal tax rates were that high and economic growth was fine”. Which, of course, is a false analogy because in the 1950’s the country and the world were still rebuilding from WWII (not that we had literal rebuilding going on, but people were getting their lives together after the disruption of the war and new techniques in production were being utilized for the first time), which is not the case now. That the rebuilding was starting to peter out and those high tax rates starting to bite was one of the rationales behind the Kennedy tax cuts.
Actually I probably would point to the 1990′s, a much more direct analogy, with modest tax increases followed by balanced budgets. But that’s just me. You did notice that economic growth was much more robust when marginal tax rates were higher, and that growth has been weakest under the low tax regimes of the GOP, I’m sure. If you’d like to go back to the Kennedy administration’s tax rates – be my guest.
Also, even many supporters of SS don’t want means testing because they know that’ll mean that SS is just “welfare for old people” and the social insurance component of it will wither, as will support.
Means testing can be implemented in many different ways – and public health care as part of the package makes means testing cash benefits less onerous. Even the rich could be permitted a small stipend to help maintain broad support for the program – with benefits more generous for those without the independent means to support themselves. There are good reasons that social security has survived for so long – and the same good reasons will ensure that the funding mechanism and disbursement policies will be adjusted to maintain solvency indefinitely. We are going to experience a difficult period for the next thirty years or so, but once we have survived the demographic bulge of the baby boom, the picture grows much more sanguine.
The fix for social security is fairly easy and not very complicated – the medicare problem is much more serious and more urgent, so it is prudent of Obama to focus on resolving the health care crisis as a top priority. Social security is a non-issue by comparison.
Peace.
DS
