Not this whole business of diverting payroll taxes to stock market accounts. That just makes the financing of SS worse. But his embrace of the Pozen proposal for progressive price indexing is a very encouraging, and surprising, sign.
Though we tend to reflexively oppose Bush on anything he says, shouldn’t we be a bit relieved that after making the income tax decidedly less progressive, Bush plans to make SS more progressive? I’ve said for years that we should make two simple changes to the program that would make it last forever:
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(1) FICA should not be assessed on the first $20K of earnings, but there should be no wage cap on how high earnings can be and be taxed. Let the CEOs making millions in salary pay FICA on every cent.
(2) Means testing for benefits. The details can be worked out, but no one who has a fat pension or IRA ought to get a dime of Social Security. It’s supposed to be an antipoverty program for the elderly, not an extra pension for rich retirees.
Bush’s proposal doesn’t go this far, of course, but then neither do the Democrats (who have become increasingly beholden to affluent urbanite donors). In fact, if you look at the article I linked above, Republicans are more open to changes toward greater progressivity in the program than Democrats are! That’s pretty frickin’ sad if you ask me.
Since Bush has forged a track record of deceit and distraction, I can’t help but react skeptically to any of his “ideas”. That being said, I heard Robert Pozen today on NPR and was surprised when he made the comment that he thought the cap on wages be on the negotiating table. I agree with you, let the CEO’s pay every cent! The devil will be in the details during the congressional committee work over the coming weeks. I guess I’m in the wait and see crowd. Thanks for the post, it’s good to have a Social Security thread around here.
an interesting take on Democracy now. Two relevant quotes:
“The reason Social Security is such a popular topic now is that everybody participates. If he cuts the benefits for the middle class and upper class by 40%, which is what this plan entails, fewer people will really care what happens to Social Security…”
What happens is that if you means test this, and it’s only the poorer people who have a vested interest in maintaining it, it won’t be maintained. And I think that’s what President Bush has in mind.”
Cut the middle class out of their benefits and they no longer care about protecting SS, which would, of course, be its death knell. Bush gets to pretend to be looking out for the poorest workers, while still achieving his ultimate goal. (If this looks familiar, it’s because I posted the same comment on a thread over at DKos. Pardon my laziness.)
and I’ll say what I said before (also over at dKos): if we have to bribe middle class and rich people every time we try to help the poor and working class, these programs are going to make the current BushCo deficit look like peanuts.
You may be right that people are that selfish, but this isn’t the answer. Progressivism can’t be about a free lunch for everyone, because there isn’t any such thing. As I noted recently in one of my best-received posts ever, the progressive philosophy, applied on a worldwide basis, is inherently a selfless one for virtually all Americans, not one that is in Americans’ own (narrowly viewed) financial interests.
A more narrowly targeted elderly antipoverty would actually be much cheaper than what we have today, and I think that even selfish voters are unlikely to cut off checks for old people who would be on the street, starving, without them.
that if we have an electorate that is inherently so selfish and stingy that they would cut any program that benefits only the poor and working class, how can progressive politics have any chance of consistent success? What, by constantly tricking more affluent voters into thinking they get a net gain from social programs, when obviously that can’t be the case? That won’t hold up, and as a “philosophy” it makes us look like little more than craven con artists.
to check my comments. Everything you say is true, and I believe that the majority of us are not inherently selfish. I certainly support my taxes being used to help others regardless of whether I get a check someday.
BUT I don’t think this is the sort of program Social Security was intended to be, and I think that part of what has made it successful is that “we’re all in it together” quality that comes from EVERYBODY paying in and EVERYBODY receiving a benefit.
My first response any time I see the Bushies doing something that looks progressive is to look for the ulterior motive. It’s cynical, but it hasn’t steered me wrong very often.
Thanks for responding.