Discussion for article #234400
Here I go again:
Tax paychecks at the standard rate with no cap. Any other form of compensation should be paid by the corporation at 100%. That includes deferred income, stock options, private jets, apartments in Paris, London, DC and NY stocked with fresh flowers and expensive artwork, and any other form of privilege or monetary transfer from company to executive. Let the stockholders start questioning the real value of their highest-level executives.
Means test benefits. Anyone receiving non-SS income (not assets) over 1000% percent of the mean SS payment receives no benefits. Those people have already profited from the system built on those lower down on the economic rung, and their SS benefits amount to greens fees, not a vital portion of their retirement.
Real social security, beyotches!
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gibberish!
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you means test SSI, and it’s gone in two election cycles.
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I have a fancy-assed solution: Vote the GOP out of office.
There. Done.
Some of these young folk had better wake up and wake up fast.
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SS benefits are already subject to DOUBLE means-testing:
-
The benefit-to-contribution ratio is steeply tilted in favor
of workers with low (lifetime average) incomes. If/when
the cap is raised to include all income (from all sources!)
the benefit calculation could (and should) be revised to
include additional “bend points” – thus tilting the ratio
even further as lifetime income (and contributions) rise. -
Higher income retirees are taxed on up to 85% of their
SS benefits. For many, this results in an effective marginal
tax rate approaching 30% on non-SS retirement income.
(That’s even more than Warren Buffet’s secretary pays.
Notice that the first test is based on pre-retirement (lifetime
average) wages, while the second is based on each year’s
post-retirement (non-SS) income. IMO, it makes sense to
consider both.
As a high-contribution retiree (with a comfortable pension)
I have no complaint with the current double means-testing,
but I believe it would be a serious mistake to cut off SS
benefits entirely for those who have contributed the most.
It’s better to tilt the benefit-to-contribution ratio enough to
ensure that the top contributors have a net positive effect
on SS sustainability – without excluding anyone.
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Grijalva insisted that Democrats should not play along, and should
instead push to raise revenues to cover the long-term shortfall as well
as expand, rather than cut, Social Security. “It would behoove us on
anything dealing with Social Security that at the end of the day,
whatever happens, we own it,” he said.
Absolutely true and, in this sense, the destruction of the Blue Dog caucus works in our favor. Of course, the flip side is that we no longer have a majority. But, at the very least, the party seems to be more unified and there’s more consensus as to what sort of blowback the Party would get vis a vis the GOP’s policies.
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This effectively punishes those who save for their own retirements, and rewards those who spend every dime during their working lives. Is that really what you want to do?
No means testing, just make it 100% taxable. The recipients with low income, or their only income is from Social Security will pay no taxes.
Increase the W-2 taxable limit to $500,000.
And, increase the minimum monthly payment for someone to $1000 a month. Some recipients, with a full time work history currently receive less than that. Try living on $1000 a month.
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This comfortably retired, effectively punished, godless socialist votes “YEA.”
“They’re also trying to signal to the American people that government is dysfunctional and cannot be relied on,” he said.
Old news.
What the GOP is trying to do with SS is redistribute the savings of the middle class to the very wealthy.
That is to pay for tax cuts and wars the GOP wants to take the savings of America’s middle class that is the SS trust fund and give it to the rich. This is the whole point behind the GOP manufactured crisis, to convince people to give up what they worked and saved to GOP cronies.
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Im suprised I didnt see …we’ve been looking into this crisis and think the privatization of SS is the best thing for our country retierees would recive up to 5% intrest on there accounts. what they dont tell you is that 5% is wittled down with extra fees and commisions bringing it down to maybe 1%to 11/2% …or the best thing for hedge fund managers
Addressing the first part of your observation…
It would have been done 30 years ago if the GOP and the MSM had not cleverly learned how to exploit the wedge issues making working and middle class Americans hate each other.
Addressing the second part of the equation… around 21% of people 18-29 voted in the 2014 elections…
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They have no choice. After stealing middle class home equity, the SS trust fund is all that’s left.
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What can we expect from a millionaire majority congress?
I’d vote that they go the austerity route.
Repubs create a crisis. Media jumps on the crisis obediently. And media immediately does all it can to put the Democrats on the defensive. That’s the track record.
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If my dreams were worth squat, the Republicans would be after them too. Except possibly for the one where I go all giant Democratic man and eat all of them but that’s more of a nightmare.
Republicans want to fix SSI just like they fixed the Post Office pension fund.
The GOP needs to work on their timing. With well over a year before the next election, there is plenty of time for the truth to come out about this and for even the slowest independent voter to see through the GOP facade.