Thursday, June 09, 2005

Interesting Insight on Social Security

Taxing the rich won't solve Social Security's problems - Yahoo! News
This is an interesting take on increasing the social security tax and it comes from people that have criticized the Bush tax cut. Note that it mentions the 'small business owner" that liberals supposedly care about and a segment they wish to grow... Well I thought it interesting anyway.
But as with a lot of things that seem easy, this tax-the-affluent-minority idea has real drawbacks. Any plan that would fix Social Security solely by taxing a relatively small number of wage earners would undermine its support. Social Security enjoys broad public backing because it is seen as a retirement savings and disability program, not a welfare program. Workers contribute while they work, then collect when they retire.
If the nearly 10 million people who make more than $90,000 a year are asked to pay in a great deal more than they will get out, that principle would be shattered. A 12.4% Social Security tax on all income, combined with other federal and state taxes, would result in affluent self-employed people paying more in taxes than they keep for themselves. That is hardly the way to bolster support for a program about which Americans are expressing increasing doubts.
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That fellow behind the tree isn't responsible for the problem. Making 6% of earners responsible for the whole solution would only show that the other 94% don't care enough about the program to make the necessary sacrifices to save it.

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