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Consider: Payroll taxes are included in your gross pay only to allow you to pay the tax. If the tax went away, so would the corresponding portion of your gross pay.
I think that specific statement is difficult to defend.
I could reverse the logic and state that the overall cost of the employee includes the payroll tax cost, and if not belonging to the SS program the employee could conceivably receive both what is allocated in their paycheck and the matching employer contribution.
I think that statement is at least as valid as assuming it would evaporate.
I think that statement is at least as valid as assuming it would evaporate.
How long do you think it would take for one rogue competitor to realize that he could increase market share and therefore profits via price-cutting funded by his and his employees' share of former payroll taxes? How many other employers would decline to respond in kind because they really just like to give you more money than the amount that you have already told them over and over and over again you are willing to work for?
How long do you think it would take for one rogue competitor to realize that he could increase market share and therefore profits via price-cutting funded by his and his employees' share of former payroll taxes? How many other employers would decline to respond in kind because they really just like to give you more money than the amount that you have already told them over and over and over again you are willing to work for?
How is that different than what already exists? All you are doing is redefining the baseline.
are being drawn - Government responsible for me - or, Me responsible for Me I choose the later. You chose the former. Stark difference
I see. You are providing for your own defense against all enemies, foreign and domestic? You drive only on your own private property? Your health is protected by vaccines that you yourself developed down in the basement? You invest in your own very private accounts on the basis of information about GDP, interest rates, unemployment, insider trading, foreign exchange, and the like that you yourself research and estimate?
There is an old Little Feat song. Fool Yourself, it's called. Check it out sometime...
How is that different than what already exists? All you are doing is redefining the baseline.
It is SS that redefines the baseline...as in artifically raising it. Once the legal mandate for that higher baseline is removed, what do you expect will hold it up?
I see. You are providing for your own defense against all enemies, foreign and domestic? You drive only on your own private property? Your health is protected by vaccines that you yourself developed down in the basement? You invest in your own very private accounts on the basis of information about GDP, interest rates, unemployment, insider trading, foreign exchange, and the like that you yourself research and estimate?
There is an old Little Feat song. Fool Yourself, it's called. Check it out sometime...
National Defense is constitutional
Your other examples are a laughable attempt to justify a truly socialistic system
I do my own research - I invest in domestic and foreign markets - markets not regulated nor controlled by the government
I have purchased medications, voluntarily, in countries other than the United States - with no US input
Etc
So, try some other vein attempt to deflect the real issue: You want people beholden for their survival to the government. I want government beholden to the people -
Spin it how you will. You are not a 'soveriegn citizen' and you are not a 'self-made man'. You are and always have been dependent in myriad ways upon the efforts of others, some as individuals, and some as organized collectives in both the public and private sectors. You are a member of society, and hence, at the end of the day, a socialist. Whether you are willing to pay a fair share of the costs incurred in providing that support is, of course, another matter entirely...
Spin it how you will. You are not a 'soveriegn citizen' and you are not a 'self-made man'. You are and always have been dependent in myriad ways upon the efforts of others, some as individuals, and some as organized collectives in both the public and private sectors. You are a member of society, and hence, at the end of the day, a socialist. Whether you are willing to pay a fair share of the costs incurred in providing that support is, of course, another matter entirely...
To the contrary - no one has helped me to be successful - no one except me.
I do not subscribe to the "it takes a village concept" as you do. I make my own decisions as to what I want to do - where I want to live including how big the house I want - where I want to drive and in what - if I want a gas guzzler or not -
I support the charities I want - those that I feel really help others - and not just with money - but with my time. I support our men and women in uniform in a wide variety of ways -
Twelve years ago, SS was supposed to hit The Big Crisis in 2029. In 2005, it was 2042, and we didn't even do anything in the decade in between. Doesn't sound much like deterioration to me. But certainly Bush has failed us in proposing changes that deliberately intend to undermine, rather than solidify, Social Security.
Get off the Bush obsession. SS was dying before he arrived on the scene. He gets a partial credit for raising the issue and an F for a proper solution.
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Very few of the big banks, financial organizations, and brokerage houses (which is how I have more than once defined it) are non-profits. Otherwise, Big Money is kind of like Big Pharma...you don't usually need to define it.
Fine then. Big Money, as you call it (stuff yours in mattress?) is not influencing my outlook. Funny how you avoid mentioning the AARP and their scare tactics.
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Brookings is independent, housing scholars of various leanings. If you'd like to link to a Brookings paper that says SS is dying, I will point out the reasons why that conclusion is in error.
You are in the DC area. Go to their very fine bookstore and indulge yourself.
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You haven't linked to anything from him either. Just mentioned his name, twice now, I think. Per the earlier reply, he is a journalist. He editorializes choosing data as he sees fit to support his positions.
A journalist trained in Economics. As for links, the Washington Post has a very fine website. Go to it and indulge yourself. I am not going to fill up this thread with links which you will ignore anyway.
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I see what is obvious when one understands and looks at the numbers. Thus it is obvious to me that when George W. Bush stands up on TV next to an early-30's American worker and claims that by the time this strapping young fellow is ready to retire, SS will be 'flat bust...bankrupt!', he is lying. Flat...out...lying.
See above for GWB comments. I declared SS morto before he ever even showed up at 1600 Penn.
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Per many earlier posts, it isn't your money, it isn't an investment program, and it is laws, not apparatchiks, that govern the situation. Only a fortunate investor would actually be able to beat SS over the long run. The rest would be worse off, many of them would be much worse off.
Its not my money? I cannot fathom a response to that level of insanity.
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