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Post by Tex on Jan 11, 2013 8:14:39 GMT -6
If you want to know how much your regular payroll taxes went up, multiply the gross x 2%. It's that simple. The employee part of Social Security went from 5.65% to 7.65%. For those in the higher brackets, it gets a little more complicated and expensive, but the 2% applies to most taxpayers. I do not see why it is more expensive for the higher tax brackets. After the cap the SS rate goes to 0. Unless you are referring to the uncapped Medicare portion of the tax. That the Medicare tax is not capped is not new (for employment income). This has been the law for a few years anyway. The ch-ch-changes I was referring to were the new 3.8 percent Medicare tax on investment income for earners above $200,000 and the higher top income tax rate. The new 3.8% tax is the first time so called payroll taxes have been extended beyond employment earnings.
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Post by Tex on Jan 11, 2013 8:29:23 GMT -6
To say that the Social Security Fund was raided to pay for wars in Afghanistan is a stretch. Starting in the 60s, Congresses took money out of the fund and replaced them with IOUs. I would agree that the Social Security Fund was effectively commingled with the General Fund.
Any dollar we spend is a dollar that can't be spent on something else, so in that sense, money spent on wars took away resources from other things, but to paint a picture that someone raided the Social Security Fund to pay for the Afghanistan war is patent bullshit.
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Jan 11, 2013 9:50:56 GMT -6
Well Tex, consider that the wars never appeared in any budget until 2009, and Bush flat out stated that it couldnt be put in the budget because the costs were unknown. Tax rates were not specifically raised to fund the wars... the money came from somewhere, and there is HEAVY evidence that the money came from the SS Trust Fund.
No, that does not prove that SS funds paid for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the wars WERE fought, WERE NOT on budget, and WERE paid for by money that came from somewhere NOT in the budget.
Your mileage may vary
Edited: BTW- The SS Trust Fund held about $1T in IOU's in 2000 and $2.2T in 2008 and about $2.6T now. Start calling in the IOU's and there is no SS problem... there is a general fund problem, but SS is secure for everyone who has and will pay into it for MANY decades. Deal with the General Fund problem as what it is... but its NOT a SS problem.
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Post by Tex on Jan 11, 2013 10:37:18 GMT -6
Gordon, HEAVY EVIDENCE? Been reading Mother Jones again?
Dollars are fungible. To say that dollars were taken from Social Security and spent on the war is to say that the dollar you deposited from your 1st quarter 2012 Ford dividend is the same dollar you paid for your car tags with last week. It's bullshit IOW.
I can believe that the wars have been very expensive and that the resources spent on them are not available to spend on Social Security, NASA, or paying the electric bill at the Agriculture Department. The same can be said for any other federal expenditure. One more good reason to avoid wars, granted, but there is no special linkage between Social Security and Afghanistan.
How the wars show up in the federal accounting system doesn't make them any more or less expensive and is a canard. We are broke and our creditors don't care if we pissed away our money on wars or whores.
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Post by ♥ COVID-19♥ on Jan 11, 2013 10:59:48 GMT -6
How the wars show up in the federal accounting system doesn't make them any more or less expensive and is a canard. Why a duck (why a no chicken?)?
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Jan 11, 2013 11:01:07 GMT -6
Very well... just saying that the Payroll Tax (SS and Medicare) is the only one that is SUPPOSED to go for a specific purpose. And that the taxes that have been collected for that purpose, since 1983, are sufficient to keep the fund paying at full benefits until mid-century.
Much of those monies have been used for OTHER purposes. Those who contributed those taxes should receive their full benefits, those agencies who borrowed from those funds need to either raise general fund taxes or cut programs so that those obligations are repaid.
You paid those taxes, we all paid those taxes, our kids are paying those taxes... for a very specific purpose. They were used for something else... that does not in any way release the government and that means the taxpayers, who benefited from that spending, from the obligation to assure that those funds will be available when they are needed by its recipients.
Edited: BTW- Have not been on Mother Jones in months. But I have quoted Forbes!
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Post by Tex on Jan 11, 2013 11:37:10 GMT -6
Sorry Beeb, I meant Mallard.
Gordon, we did pay into the SS fund, and that tax has been around since the late 1930s BTW. The problem with Social Security is that it has never been sound from an actuarial standpoint from Day One. The first SS recipient was a lady named Ida Fuller. She paid in under $30 and collected over $100,000. Great for her but not for the reserves. Our dads' generation collected on average about 5 times what they could have gotten investing the same amount in a private annuity. Our generation won't get a decent return on the dollars and was left holding the bag and our children get outright screwed. I don't know an answer that makes everyone whole, but do believe that facing reality is a critical step in devising a workable plan. Santa is the only one who can really fix Social Security to everyone's satisfaction. Watching yourself go bankrupt because you believe you deserve more than you can afford may be human but just multiplies misery down the road.
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Post by Exildo Wonsetler Briggs III on Jan 13, 2013 0:35:08 GMT -6
There are a LOT of RICH people who benefited financially from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... and you wonder why so many people reelected a President who ran on a "Tax the Rich" platform? Because the people who elected him are stupid. Quite simply. Anyone who takes the time to look at the Congressional Budget Office data on taxes over the year can easily see that since 1979, the amount of tax paid by "the rich" has risen each and ever year. More importantly, the percentage of federal income tax paid by the top 20% has risen to almost 90 some odd percent. It rose even during the Bush years. The political talking point "the rich need to pay their fair share" is just that . . . a BULLSHIT piece of crap that ignores that "the rich" keep paying more of the burden each year, even during the Bush "tax cuts for the rich." I have all the data and will point you stupid shits to it who think the rich need to pay more taxes. When I hear that, I *KNOW* the person claiming it is dumber than a stump . . . they clearly have NOT looked to see who is paying what and simply listening to dumbass talking points from liberal lunes. It's all at the CBO web site. Look it up. Dumb fucks . . .
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Post by New Mama on Jan 14, 2013 9:50:56 GMT -6
Anita, how can you say "To claim that Bush used SS money to pay for the war is misleading and not correct. " IT IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. To date $700B have come out of the SS trust fund, in the form of IOU's, to pay for Afghanistan alone. These IOU's are non-marketable, and simply state that one dept of the government has borrowed for the SS Trust Fund. Yes, that money has been tapped into since LBJ, but the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is where the bottom fell out. Anita, if you dont believe me, read this. Over the years I have read most of you posts, respectfully. Now it is time to repay. This is 18 months old, but the facts are essentially the same. SS IS NOT part of the budget, and it is broke because it has been pilfered for well over a generation as a source of OF BUDGET money. ForbesI finally got some time to get back to this. Your Forbes article said just as I said. SS is in the General Budget as a separate line item. It has been borrowed from since Eisenhower who by the way was the last President to actually pay back borrowings. Current contributions to the SS fund have paid obligations until the crash of 2009. As a result of the high unemployment 2010 was the first year that contributions did not cover obligations for that fiscal year. IOU’s were called to fund the shortage adding to our total debt and need to raise the debt ceiling. The 2009 stimulus also added to that need as well as the Afghanistan. What I can’t accept…please show me…is how Bush never paid for the war; those years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just who do you think paid for them? What kind of tricky accounting allowed Bush to ignore the cost and not pay for the war during his tenure? Just who paid the troops and contractors there? I believe the United States Congress authorized the payment with my tax dollars but would like to know if I’ve been fooled somehow. Your Forbes article says “If the budget crisis has done nothing else, it has exposed the decades-long lie about the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.” The fund has not been fully funded for decades have IOU’s as its assets. How could the fund pay for Iraq or Afghanistan if the SS Fund's principal asset is an IOU?
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