4.2.05
One bite-sized take on the Social Security crisis
Some liberals are calling for good, yet easy-to-understand, arguments against Bush's proposed PRIVATIZATION (all caps following MAXSPEAK style guidelines) of social security. Here's one by Dave Lindorff:
Moreover, while the Right talks ominously of a generational conflict between older retirees collecting pensions and younger workers paying the taxes to cover them, in fact, those retirees are the parents of many of those workers (not everyone has children, but everyone has parents!). And how many people complain about the size of their parents' Social Security checks, or would really want to have to be personally responsible for taking care of their elderly parents' finances? There really is considerable support even among young workers, for a secure and generous retirement system, because people don't just vote their own interests; they vote their parents' and grandparents' interests, too.
...
... here's something the president has not told people: if the cap on income subject to Social Security taxation, currently set at $90,000 in wages, were eliminated so all income was subject to the tax, there would be no shortfall in the trust fund--not in 2042, not in 2075, never.
This is true: eliminating the cap on wages should be one of the main counterproposals for the PRIVATIZATION scheme. But, of course, if Democrats did that, Republicans would level the charge of "class warfare", which invariably causes Democrats to slink away with their tails between their legs.
But I don't think we'll be seeing many references to Lindorff's piece by our liberal colleagues. Since Lindorff's piece is on Counterpunch, people going there to read it run the risk of also reading articles by people like Ward Churchill and Gilad Atzmon, which might lead to all sorts of unpleasant repercussions for bland, yet "reasonable", worldviews.
Some liberals are calling for good, yet easy-to-understand, arguments against Bush's proposed PRIVATIZATION (all caps following MAXSPEAK style guidelines) of social security. Here's one by Dave Lindorff:
Moreover, while the Right talks ominously of a generational conflict between older retirees collecting pensions and younger workers paying the taxes to cover them, in fact, those retirees are the parents of many of those workers (not everyone has children, but everyone has parents!). And how many people complain about the size of their parents' Social Security checks, or would really want to have to be personally responsible for taking care of their elderly parents' finances? There really is considerable support even among young workers, for a secure and generous retirement system, because people don't just vote their own interests; they vote their parents' and grandparents' interests, too.
...
... here's something the president has not told people: if the cap on income subject to Social Security taxation, currently set at $90,000 in wages, were eliminated so all income was subject to the tax, there would be no shortfall in the trust fund--not in 2042, not in 2075, never.
This is true: eliminating the cap on wages should be one of the main counterproposals for the PRIVATIZATION scheme. But, of course, if Democrats did that, Republicans would level the charge of "class warfare", which invariably causes Democrats to slink away with their tails between their legs.
But I don't think we'll be seeing many references to Lindorff's piece by our liberal colleagues. Since Lindorff's piece is on Counterpunch, people going there to read it run the risk of also reading articles by people like Ward Churchill and Gilad Atzmon, which might lead to all sorts of unpleasant repercussions for bland, yet "reasonable", worldviews.
