So a portion of your income from the employer is set aside for "misfits", out of your control but the employer has to pay that as, what I would call extortion to having an employee, that simple is a good member of one's company. Gov extortion, is that what you are recommending? Not that this isn't what is already happening.
I think you would have to really dig into the numbers to see what would work. You may be able to do a partial employer match and a partial into the safety net fund. You would also need a period of transition.
So if what you say is true. I can collect all of my fathers inputs that he didn't get, my mothers, his fathers, her fathers, grandfathers/ mothers..
I think you're looking at it backwards. The generational transfer goes from the young to the old. Your dad's "inputs" went to people who were already old while he was still working. They are long gone.
Yeah, my dad thought Social Security was awful until he started drawing. "I paid a lot of money into it!"
A couple of points, first, I don't think anyone considers the roughly 7.5% that their employer pays into Social Security and Medicare as part of their pay. I would bet you dollars to donuts that if that tax went away tomorrow that the percentage of employers that would suddenly give their employees a 7.5% raise would be significantly less than 10% of all employers. How do I know? Because employers didn't have a sudden jump in wages when Trump and Republicans cut corporate taxes from an average effective rate of 22% to an average effective rate of 12.8%. So it would be just a tax based on corporate payroll just like it is now.
God forbid businesses have to have some skin in the game where they reside. I am even more convinced that businesses, particularly large "global" corporations have a responsibility to invest in the countries they do business in. There is a whole host of infrastructure that has gone into making this a place they would like to do business. They have shown that they don't share the extra windfall with their employees to offset the loss in taxes, it goes to their investors and sits accumulating wealth until such point it is withdrawn from the market and can be taxed for capital gains. Cutting them out of the tax pool would decimate the standard of living in this country. We would resemble a third world country eventually with very few areas of extravagant wealth surrounded by shit holes.
Just fundamentally disagree. Government spending is problematic but there is a bunch of evidence that the governmwnt spending in some cases has increased to fill the void that industry vacated. Industry got a roughly 10% tax break 6 years ago. What did you and I get out of that deal? Lower prices? No. A big wage increase? No. **** industry, they aren't any better than government. Frankly they are all in cahoots with each other. There are tech overlords lining up to kick Trump money now. He backed H1B visas and is talking about amnesty for Dreamers. You don't think industry has been in his ear about that stuff? McDonald's and Walmart need a functional society to best see a payoff on their investment. Ford needs roads for people to drive its product on.
It would be under what I was saying. Employers would pay for SSDI and employees would be funding their own retirement funds that would be their personal property.
itep.org
You are right, I was think about pay in backwards, instead of pay it forwards. I stand corrected and apologize.
And I know some people are probably thinking, "what the hell?" on my stance on some of this but I am of the belief that the reality of the situation is that the vast majority of us believe in a certain level of government that would need funded. Yes, we need to look at spending but when you look at stuff like this:
Corporate Taxes Before and After the Trump Tax Law
The Trump tax law slashed taxes for America’s largest, consistently profitable corporations. These companies saw their effective tax rates fall from an average of 22.0 percent to an average of 12.8 percent after the Trump tax law went into effect in 2018.
maybe we should be questioning the fiscal responsibility of cutting inlays while also continuing to increase outlays. We also need to question just how much we can reduce outlays without addressing increasing inlays. To put this in kitchen table terms, if our mortgage, electric bill, water bill, grocery bill, car insurance, and gas costs are already more than our monthly salary, then there is no amount of discretionary spending cuts that is going to resolve our problem. We need another income stream.
So what you are saying is that our totally entitled elected swamp creators have our end of times already built in and there is nothing that we can do about it without substantial pain. Is that the nuts and bolts in elementary speak?
You'll have the lyrics to The Internationale memorized in no time.
That is exactly what happened. The first SS payors gave money that was paid to the first SS payees, who themselves had never paid anything.
I was told the exact opposite. Not that I wasn't pissed before, now I'm really pissed that I have been played for 50+ years! Things like this is why the swamp love people not knowing the truth. .... Now I'm dbl pissed. !
If you cut all discretionary spending you would still be in a deficit. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense spending, and interest on the debt totaled $4.71 Trillion in 2024. Net reciepts were $4.919 Trillion. You would have to cut almost everything else the governmwnt spends money on outside of those programs to reach a balance. If you add in refundable tax credits at $199 billion you are left with $10 billion to fund everything else. That includes things like Veteran's Affairs.
Yeah, we're boned.
Inflation is a tax.
No disagreement there, political cowardice got us here and political cowardice will continue the pain.
I may not have it exactly correct. I'm not sure what the status was of people who retired before the system even started was. But from the very beginning, it was absolutely a transfer from working to retired, that had little to no connection to what anyone had "put into" it. Read up on Ida May Fuller:
I know I am 99% sarcastic so thanks for the honest response. I am though 100% hating on the swamp, and that is not party affiliated!I may not have it exactly correct. I'm not sure what the status was of people who retired before the system even started was. But from the very beginning, it was absolutely a transfer from working to retired, that had little to no connection to what anyone had "put into" it. Read up on Ida May Fuller:
Ida May Fuller - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Helvering v. Davis laid out that Social Security is not an insurance program. It is a tax and welfare program.
A joke I know but I just think we have to be realistic about where we are. At a certain point you have to address the situation as it is as opposed to how you wish it were.
Everything that I have been taught, is now dead. I'm not sure what to think right now, but thank you and @The Original Happy Goat .Helvering v. Davis laid out that Social Security is not an insurance program. It is a tax and welfare program.
Helvering v. Davis - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Fleming v. Nestor basically held that even if someone paid into the program for 19 years, they aren't entitled to receipt of benefits (in this case because he was an illegal immigrants who was deported.) So no property rights either.
Flemming v. Nestor - Wikipedia
The important implication for me is this: if we were ever to transition to some kinds of individual savings plan, that would leave a huge gap of people - too young to ever draw on the money that's there now, but too old to ever save anything worthwhile before they retire - that will need to be paid for somehow. I'm sure others smarter than me have already done the math, but basic logic suggests that switching from a collect-now-pay-now model to a collect-now-pay-later model requires us to somehow come up with enough money to pay for an entire generation of people stuck in the middle.
The Trump tax cuts were regressive, because the top 1% received more money, even taking the deductions into account.
That’s not what regressive means. As a % of take home pay middle and lower class saw their income increase more than the 1%.
That argument doesn’t wash. How much somebody “receives” from a tax cut makes no sense. Nobody receives anything except for the EIC folks.
But high earners still ended up with more money relative to the lower. So it wasn't progressive...net. That’s all that matters. What was the net effect? The 1% are better off.
Stop using the word relative. If your standard of living increases, your purchasing power increases yet you complain about someone else also having their income increase more than yourself in absolute dollars….. That’s called greed and jealousy. Are those things your foundation for crafting tax policy?
If a 1%er has his tax liability go from $100,000 to $90, 000 and a low owner has his tax bill go from $2,500 to $0, that is not an increase of progressiveness?
The net effect would be regressive. Why should anything else matter? Unless, you're trying to confuse people?
No. If 99% get an increase of $5,000, and the 1% get an increase of $20,000, as inflation eats the $5,000 away, the $20,000 will have more leftover. The 99% over the longer run will have a neutral.
Tax cuts like the scenario you outlined are not inflationary. The guy taking home $500K a year who sees his take home go to $520K is not going to start purchasing more groceries, mid priced vehicles/ homes, using more gas, etc.
I don't think the way you are using the terms regressive and progressive if the way most people use them.
That's a good point. As pointed out above, they do invest in RE, ect. So, there is some overlap.
Any suggestions?
I disagree with the premise that the 1% were the biggest beneficiaries. In absolute dollars sure. But that money to them is far less important than the money for the lower and middle class. You’re right that the 1% is far likelier to invest the money gained from tax cuts rather than spend it.
Sometimes you can right click (or hold down on the graph with your finger if using a phone) and open in new window. Then copy the link and put it into the picture link insert in the tool bar above where you post.
