I receive my late wife's survivor Social Security Benefits since her death from pancreatic cancer. My brother during his struggles with mental illness also benefits from Social Security.
I am not a fan of knowing that some of my federal income tax is helping Israel drop bombs in Gaza. However, as a self employed person, I pay Social Secur…
I receive my late wife's survivor Social Security Benefits since her death from pancreatic cancer. My brother during his struggles with mental illness also benefits from Social Security.
I am not a fan of knowing that some of my federal income tax is helping Israel drop bombs in Gaza. However, as a self employed person, I pay Social Security gladly, knowing that the money goes where it is needed...
I am concerned, however, about the system's solvency...
I don’t know why more people are not talking about raising the ceiling or even eliminating the ceiling on the payroll tax. That would keep Social Security solvent for decades, depending on whether they raise or eliminate it
Yes! Eliminate the ceiling on FICA taxes. And apply FICA taxes to all income, not just wage income. It is unfair for poor and middle-class wage earners to pay over 14% of their compensation (including the employer contribution to their FICA taxes), while people with annual incomes in the millions pay close to 0% in FICA taxes. Scrap the cap to put Social Security on a sound basis and to make it closer to fair. Not fair, mind you. That would require progressive FICA taxes, but let’s just start with flat FICA taxes. What we have now is regressive FICA taxation.
Okay let's try to be a little bit fair here. There are plenty of billionaires. But that doesn't mean all or even most of them have billions in income. Most have billions in assets, but income is significantly lower than their net worth. And right now we don't have a net worth tax although many of us have advocated for that in the future (Liz Warren has been pushing a net worth tax for quite a while).
Yes they are still megarich and most pay far less in taxes as a percentage of their net worth than the rest of us but let's be correct when we criticize this. Thx for listening.
Yes I had the thought that few would make more than a billion or even that much in a year. And yet I think what I said is technically true, or true enough for informal discussion. A news item claimed that over several years Trump paid from 0 to $750 dollars in income tax, and other billionaires have been said to pay nothing. Some years ago. Warren Buffet, who claimed to use no loophole legerdemain, said the the woman who empties his waste basket pays a greater share of her income in tax than he (and he was not OK about it). I overgeneralize o a forum such this as it is informal and long posts more rarely read, but yes, i want to be fundamentally accurate and informed where I might be slipping.
Parenthetically. HRC has written more than once about how old school Republicans introduced a graduated federal income tax to pay for the Civil War. They reasoned that it was only fair that those more easily pay a proportionally larger share should do so.
Warren Buffet is not the only one proposing taxes on wealth (that is, net worth). Piketty’s data shows that without wealth taxes (together with steeply progressive income taxes) capitalist economies are intrinsically unstable. So, wealth taxes (on the extremely wealthy, not on the bottom 99%) are a requirement for stability, not a luxury. And yes, wealth taxes would require the holders of wealth to cash in sone of their wealth annually to pay their wealth taxes. That is not a bug. It is part the purpose of wealth taxes.
We are talking about annual income, not wealth. Wealth tax is another matter. According to Piketty, who has the data, we should have wealth taxes too, if we want a stable capitalist system. But FICA is a a tax on annual income, not wealth.
I think he knows he's a fake, but proud, as in hubris, that he fools people. His combined with his huge inheritance (which Robert Reich claims would have made him richer in a passive index fund) his shame-free sociopathy is his superpower. But it's also his huge potential liability. He must brutally attack any kid who comments on his nudity.
My guess, like yours, is that he knows he’s not in the classy class. Not that being in the classy class is necessarily admirable, but it’s important to him. He desperately wants to be one of them, and he wears his desperation on his sleeve. He knows that the only people he’s fooling are rubes and boobies, people he despises but knows are the source if his power. That realization constantly humiliates him from the inside out. Humiliation produces the worst sort of anger, and his reaction to that anger is what he exhibits in public.
He was never accepted, even while he was president, by the people he desperately wants to respect him. For example, other world leaders laughed at him in public and weren’t even surreptitious about it. He knows that, and it eats away af his insides.
They do pay lower taxes on capital gains, which for many high income people is substantial. Many view this as double taxation-money you earn then invest is taxed when you sell the stock or other asset-home, art, jewelry, etc., but taxes are only on the amount above what you paid.
That's only part of the many options to reduce taxation that are only available to the well off (including me, since my retirement income comes from investments). I think the wealthier you are the more that is true, which is to say nothing of shadowy offshore shenanigans, much of which is "perfectly legal" even though an obvious con. Big corporations do it openly, let alone legally anonymous shell corporations that take a Sherlock Homes to even identify who owns them. It is innately easier for those with money to make disproportionately more, something that the rules should regulate, not accelerate.
Well, now that the trust fund is run down, there is nothing to raid. We need to tax all forms of income for Social Security.
Edit: I'm mistaken, there is still money in the trust fund. We just need to tax more to back the funds withdrawn in order to not further raise the national debt.
Mim…..^^^^THIS!!!^^^^ There should be no ceiling on the payroll tax IMHO…I mean, really, the wealthiest among us can’t cough it up??!! Love the saying “make a living, not a killing”…..when does one actually have “enough”??
The US Constitution, with Amendments, attempts to support justice for the individual AND the society. The rights of both are inextricably intertwined. A free, open and just society knows that individual rights and social justice are two ways of looking at the same thing.
I sure hope so. even Obama was pushing a round about cut to SS benefits with the "Chained CPI" (which didn't fly). Ike (who could not have imagined imagined the power hate radio and Internet in the US) said:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
In today’s climate he would be a center-left Democrat. It seems to me he was the last really decent Republican politician, certainly President. (My parents and some of my friends’ parents were very decent, honorable people who were Republicans, but not politicians.)
👍 Agree about Ike. He was the first president I was “aware” of as a kid—tho’ only in the way a kid is aware of politics. I came to understand, as the Republicans who replaced him in office, that he mostly stood apart from and “above” them. Some years ago I remarked to a friend that he was the last Republican president I admired.
Because he put down fascism? The Interstate highway system had strategic defense implication, as well as economic benefits. High taxation of the richest? Well fair is fair.
From a letter from President Eisenhower to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November, 8 1954 with more context:
"Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this — in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything — even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Eisenhower was conservative with a small "c" but clearly in the country before party camp. Nixon was more of an opportunist, and though most hold Reagan in much higher regard than Nixon, I think Reagan was worse. It wasn't really "government" that Reagan was attacking (his party has used every trick in the book to dominate government since) but rather the of, by and for the people version of it.
I think it is hard to believe Eisenhower was a Republican insofar as what we call Republican today is really nothing of the sort. MAGA openly rejects the Republic and clamors for some form of dictator. That would sound alarmist if Trump had not flirted with promising to be one, and points to current dictators (even North Korea's Kim) as models of good governance; to say nothing of Project 2025. His claim of not having to vote after the coming election is ominous however you interpret it.
I certainly agree with you that Reagan in pure political terms was far worse than Nixon. NIxon's principle problem was getting caught for his own paranoia in Watergate. Reagan took the country down a very dark path which has led us to today.
And i think Eisenhower would almost never be what is now considered to be a Republican.
And I keep harping on this, but it's a big issue, Nixon, as corrupt as he proved to be (from early on in his career) was far more receptive, even active for environmental protection, while Reagan was hostile to it, as has been a "Republican" trait since.
Correction - they are now Texas oil billionaires, their numbers are not negligible and they are not stupid. Ike lived in a more sane time, although he might argue the point.
They had to point out to Dr. Evil in "Goldmember" that a million dollars is not what it used to be, but also for decades more and more of the total ownerhip and politcal influence of America has run to the 1%, exactly what "Reaganomics" was designed to deliver.
The Eisenhower era was both both more and less sane, but what HCR calls "the Liberal Consensus" was certainly saner than virtual civil war. Economic equity and opportunity were in some ways more reasonable, but social equity (and with it, economic injustices) more stratified for minorities (including gays) and women. Far less w*ke.
Wasn't it Everett Dirksen who said a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. It was in junk bond idiocy days, so it might have been millions back then. A million dollars is not what it used to be. Explains a lot. The rich are feeling poorer and need to compensate. . Ha
Many voters who pay the tax throughout the year are unaware of the payroll tax ceiling.($168,600 for 2024). Let’s keep sharing with every voter we talk with and ask..Do you think this is fair?📣
I almost couldn’t bear what W/Dickie did with my tax money, same with chump. Now, as a recent widow, I pay more than ever. I’d love for it to go to something besides another yacht for greedy bitches and bastards of the Republican persuasian
I receive my late wife's survivor Social Security Benefits since her death from pancreatic cancer. My brother during his struggles with mental illness also benefits from Social Security.
I am not a fan of knowing that some of my federal income tax is helping Israel drop bombs in Gaza. However, as a self employed person, I pay Social Security gladly, knowing that the money goes where it is needed...
I am concerned, however, about the system's solvency...
I don’t know why more people are not talking about raising the ceiling or even eliminating the ceiling on the payroll tax. That would keep Social Security solvent for decades, depending on whether they raise or eliminate it
Yes! Eliminate the ceiling on FICA taxes. And apply FICA taxes to all income, not just wage income. It is unfair for poor and middle-class wage earners to pay over 14% of their compensation (including the employer contribution to their FICA taxes), while people with annual incomes in the millions pay close to 0% in FICA taxes. Scrap the cap to put Social Security on a sound basis and to make it closer to fair. Not fair, mind you. That would require progressive FICA taxes, but let’s just start with flat FICA taxes. What we have now is regressive FICA taxation.
And those in the billions in income pay 0% in income taxes, or relatively very little.
Okay let's try to be a little bit fair here. There are plenty of billionaires. But that doesn't mean all or even most of them have billions in income. Most have billions in assets, but income is significantly lower than their net worth. And right now we don't have a net worth tax although many of us have advocated for that in the future (Liz Warren has been pushing a net worth tax for quite a while).
Yes they are still megarich and most pay far less in taxes as a percentage of their net worth than the rest of us but let's be correct when we criticize this. Thx for listening.
Yes I had the thought that few would make more than a billion or even that much in a year. And yet I think what I said is technically true, or true enough for informal discussion. A news item claimed that over several years Trump paid from 0 to $750 dollars in income tax, and other billionaires have been said to pay nothing. Some years ago. Warren Buffet, who claimed to use no loophole legerdemain, said the the woman who empties his waste basket pays a greater share of her income in tax than he (and he was not OK about it). I overgeneralize o a forum such this as it is informal and long posts more rarely read, but yes, i want to be fundamentally accurate and informed where I might be slipping.
Parenthetically. HRC has written more than once about how old school Republicans introduced a graduated federal income tax to pay for the Civil War. They reasoned that it was only fair that those more easily pay a proportionally larger share should do so.
Warren Buffet is not the only one proposing taxes on wealth (that is, net worth). Piketty’s data shows that without wealth taxes (together with steeply progressive income taxes) capitalist economies are intrinsically unstable. So, wealth taxes (on the extremely wealthy, not on the bottom 99%) are a requirement for stability, not a luxury. And yes, wealth taxes would require the holders of wealth to cash in sone of their wealth annually to pay their wealth taxes. That is not a bug. It is part the purpose of wealth taxes.
We are talking about annual income, not wealth. Wealth tax is another matter. According to Piketty, who has the data, we should have wealth taxes too, if we want a stable capitalist system. But FICA is a a tax on annual income, not wealth.
Loopholes are the Repub bread, butter and caviar
Or McNuggets if you're Trump.
He’s a poor excuse for classy elite…if only he knew
I think he knows he's a fake, but proud, as in hubris, that he fools people. His combined with his huge inheritance (which Robert Reich claims would have made him richer in a passive index fund) his shame-free sociopathy is his superpower. But it's also his huge potential liability. He must brutally attack any kid who comments on his nudity.
My guess, like yours, is that he knows he’s not in the classy class. Not that being in the classy class is necessarily admirable, but it’s important to him. He desperately wants to be one of them, and he wears his desperation on his sleeve. He knows that the only people he’s fooling are rubes and boobies, people he despises but knows are the source if his power. That realization constantly humiliates him from the inside out. Humiliation produces the worst sort of anger, and his reaction to that anger is what he exhibits in public.
Nose pressed to the glass. The Presidency gave him a clue of what acceptance felt like. Temporarily
He was never accepted, even while he was president, by the people he desperately wants to respect him. For example, other world leaders laughed at him in public and weren’t even surreptitious about it. He knows that, and it eats away af his insides.
They do pay lower taxes on capital gains, which for many high income people is substantial. Many view this as double taxation-money you earn then invest is taxed when you sell the stock or other asset-home, art, jewelry, etc., but taxes are only on the amount above what you paid.
That's only part of the many options to reduce taxation that are only available to the well off (including me, since my retirement income comes from investments). I think the wealthier you are the more that is true, which is to say nothing of shadowy offshore shenanigans, much of which is "perfectly legal" even though an obvious con. Big corporations do it openly, let alone legally anonymous shell corporations that take a Sherlock Homes to even identify who owns them. It is innately easier for those with money to make disproportionately more, something that the rules should regulate, not accelerate.
Say it loud and say it proud, Rex!!!
But not in Italy! Very rude word.
Very!
I must hsve lost track somewhere in this thread. What word are you talking about?
Decency and modesty forbid me to reply. Miss that one, catch the next...
Is that a hint? Still can’t figure it out.
OK, climbing back up the thread I find a 7-line post beginning:
Rex Page (Left Coast)
20 hrs ago
Yes! Eliminate the ceiling on ( four-letter acronym) taxes.
Don't worry - 'twas a passing joke, and only one person has indicated that they either knew or looked up the meaning.
Remember Al Gore's "lock box" for Social Security to keep Congress from raiding it? I wonder why we quit demanding it.
Well, now that the trust fund is run down, there is nothing to raid. We need to tax all forms of income for Social Security.
Edit: I'm mistaken, there is still money in the trust fund. We just need to tax more to back the funds withdrawn in order to not further raise the national debt.
Mim…..^^^^THIS!!!^^^^ There should be no ceiling on the payroll tax IMHO…I mean, really, the wealthiest among us can’t cough it up??!! Love the saying “make a living, not a killing”…..when does one actually have “enough”??
Make a living, not a killing. Reminds me of “we have enough to satisfy the need, but not the greed.”
The US Constitution, with Amendments, attempts to support justice for the individual AND the society. The rights of both are inextricably intertwined. A free, open and just society knows that individual rights and social justice are two ways of looking at the same thing.
Mim; I believe that will happen. The political winds are shifting. It’s palpable.
I sure hope so. even Obama was pushing a round about cut to SS benefits with the "Chained CPI" (which didn't fly). Ike (who could not have imagined imagined the power hate radio and Internet in the US) said:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Wow that is a great quote from Eisenhower. Hard to believe that guy was a republican.
In today’s climate he would be a center-left Democrat. It seems to me he was the last really decent Republican politician, certainly President. (My parents and some of my friends’ parents were very decent, honorable people who were Republicans, but not politicians.)
👍 Agree about Ike. He was the first president I was “aware” of as a kid—tho’ only in the way a kid is aware of politics. I came to understand, as the Republicans who replaced him in office, that he mostly stood apart from and “above” them. Some years ago I remarked to a friend that he was the last Republican president I admired.
Because he put down fascism? The Interstate highway system had strategic defense implication, as well as economic benefits. High taxation of the richest? Well fair is fair.
I still remember "I like Ike".
Signs in Texas called him a commie, back in the 60’s. It was rare then.
From a letter from President Eisenhower to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November, 8 1954 with more context:
"Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this — in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything — even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Eisenhower was conservative with a small "c" but clearly in the country before party camp. Nixon was more of an opportunist, and though most hold Reagan in much higher regard than Nixon, I think Reagan was worse. It wasn't really "government" that Reagan was attacking (his party has used every trick in the book to dominate government since) but rather the of, by and for the people version of it.
I think it is hard to believe Eisenhower was a Republican insofar as what we call Republican today is really nothing of the sort. MAGA openly rejects the Republic and clamors for some form of dictator. That would sound alarmist if Trump had not flirted with promising to be one, and points to current dictators (even North Korea's Kim) as models of good governance; to say nothing of Project 2025. His claim of not having to vote after the coming election is ominous however you interpret it.
I certainly agree with you that Reagan in pure political terms was far worse than Nixon. NIxon's principle problem was getting caught for his own paranoia in Watergate. Reagan took the country down a very dark path which has led us to today.
And i think Eisenhower would almost never be what is now considered to be a Republican.
Or Lincoln.
And I keep harping on this, but it's a big issue, Nixon, as corrupt as he proved to be (from early on in his career) was far more receptive, even active for environmental protection, while Reagan was hostile to it, as has been a "Republican" trait since.
Correction - they are now Texas oil billionaires, their numbers are not negligible and they are not stupid. Ike lived in a more sane time, although he might argue the point.
They had to point out to Dr. Evil in "Goldmember" that a million dollars is not what it used to be, but also for decades more and more of the total ownerhip and politcal influence of America has run to the 1%, exactly what "Reaganomics" was designed to deliver.
The Eisenhower era was both both more and less sane, but what HCR calls "the Liberal Consensus" was certainly saner than virtual civil war. Economic equity and opportunity were in some ways more reasonable, but social equity (and with it, economic injustices) more stratified for minorities (including gays) and women. Far less w*ke.
Wasn't it Everett Dirksen who said a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. It was in junk bond idiocy days, so it might have been millions back then. A million dollars is not what it used to be. Explains a lot. The rich are feeling poorer and need to compensate. . Ha
Many voters who pay the tax throughout the year are unaware of the payroll tax ceiling.($168,600 for 2024). Let’s keep sharing with every voter we talk with and ask..Do you think this is fair?📣
I commented on the same idea, but you were first!
I almost couldn’t bear what W/Dickie did with my tax money, same with chump. Now, as a recent widow, I pay more than ever. I’d love for it to go to something besides another yacht for greedy bitches and bastards of the Republican persuasian
I expand on this observation in an article I posted around noontime...
https://jonathanbrownson.substack.com/p/social-security?r=gdp9j