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Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

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Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#111

Post by grandalf »

jbooth wrote: post #110
grandalf wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Social Security were a private company it would be considered a pyramid scheme and shut down. Imagine someone published a Fidelity internal memo to Wikileaks stating that all shareholders under age 40 were required to keep investing 12.5% of their salary every month, could not sell, and would receive a negative return upon reaching retirement age. It's so fafetched it's laughable. I don't have a problem with the g…

Well, for the record, SS is a very conservative market investment -- the surplus is invested in government T-bills every year, that's as conservative as you can get. Of course then people turn around and say it's the government writing itself checks or they're worthless IOUs or something. As far as the finances, as I understand things, simply raising the cap on income would extend things out a bit, FICA doesn't get c…

There's nothing wrong with using T-Bills, the problem is that the T-Bills are not owned by the worker for 12.5% of his lifetime earnings. And, if any money is saved it's just a temporary measure b/c the program is designed as a pay-as-you-go program, where the taxes paid by current workers are sent to current retirees. So it's really not investment that is going on, merely a very temporary surplus.

I don't approve of raising the income cap because that fails to address the regressive nature of the tax. It also fails to address the larger issue, which is the vulnerability of the program to demographic shifts and congress's whims, including the oft-used whim of spending the current surplus on other things to avoid having to raise taxes now for current spending.

I think the best solution would be to give workers below a certain age the option of opting out of the pay-go program and instead choosing an investment based program curated by the government but with an ownership component. The missing revenue should just be paid for via our progressive income tax regime.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#112

Post by xenophanes »

timr wrote: post #80
xenophanes wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social security and medicare are "welfare" by any reasonable definition. So the welfare state is a big issue.

You can define "welfare" however you like, but it doesn't change the reality that no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Old people comprise the base of both political parties.

I agree with you that the Republicans aren't going to do much of what I want. I don't agree that all politicians are Democrats or Republicans, or that it's pointless to speak about issues where the parties in power aren't making good proposals.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#113

Post by yummyfajitas »

jbooth wrote: post #109
jbellis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

390B + 240B is over 20% of the total 2008 budget. I guess we have different definitions of "minor."

Hey jbellis, been doing some Cassandra this past week. The original contention was just regarding medicaid -- 290 billion compared to a 3 trillion budget, with a > 1 trillion deficit. Entitlements all together add up to about half of the budget. They're big. But the original point was that nobody wants to touch medicare/SS but everyone makes Medicaid the bad guy. Makes you think they're more concerned with demographi…

Medicaid amounts to 65% of the budget deficit and about 60% of medicare. Welfare amounts to another 70%. If we cut the welfare state (i.e., medicare and welfare), we would have a budget surplus.

While I agree that medicaid is a politically easier target than medicare, it's not a small program. It's a completely legitimate target of criticism, and eliminating it would significantly improve the federal budget.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#114

Post by brettmjohnson »

joezydeco wrote: post #37

Funny, my local county government lists where all the taxes go. It's amusing (or enraging, I guess) to see we still pay for a Tuberculosis sanitarium.

Why does this surprise you? Since deficit spending is generally disallowed for state and local governments, nearly all sizable projects are funded through bonds. Bonds are basically loans with a promise to pay back in the future, generally with tax revenues. So you are paying off that 99 year bond to build a TB sanatorium built in the 1930s.

We are doing the same thing today. My grandchildren will be paying for the school repair and high-speed rail bonds that passed a couple of years ago here in California. Their grandchildren will be paying off the anti-global-warming school air conditioning and hyper mag-lev rail bonds that will be put forth 25 years from now.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#115

Post by timr »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #91
timr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely a great idea, given that members of both major political parties are absolutely loathe to touch the biggest sources of government expenditure: old person benefits (social security + medicare), and the military. Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". With greater pu…

Medical services for the poor (medicaid) are comparatively minor, but you wouldn't know it, given how much emphasis the Republicans place on the question of the "welfare state". I'm not sure I'd describe medicaid as "comparatively minor". Medicare is $390B, medicaid $247B ($290B including the state contributions). I guess the threshold for expenses that don't matter must bet somewhere between $290B and $390B. http://…

"I'm not sure I'd describe medicaid as "comparatively minor". Medicare is $390B, medicaid $247B ($290B including the state contributions). I guess the threshold for expenses that don't matter must bet somewhere between $290B and $390B."

2009 US Federal Spending: 3,518 Billion (100%)

2009 US Defense Spending: 782 Billion (23%)

2009 US Social Security: 678 Billion (20%)

Medicare and Medicaid combined: 676 Billion (19%)

I'm not saying Medicaid is nothing; I'm saying it's not even close to Social Security or defense spending as a source of concern.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY...

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#116

Post by jpwagner »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #28

The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan supported sending people statements of what was in their social security. His idea was that if people never saw what was in there, they'd never miss it when it was gone. I think this is a logical extension of that idea, and its great. I'd also like to see the flip side of the receipt contain a guess for how the same tax amount would break down the following year based on curre…

services like turbotax could distribute these sorts of receipts.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#117

Post by jbooth »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #113
jbooth wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey jbellis, been doing some Cassandra this past week. The original contention was just regarding medicaid -- 290 billion compared to a 3 trillion budget, with a > 1 trillion deficit. Entitlements all together add up to about half of the budget. They're big. But the original point was that nobody wants to touch medicare/SS but everyone makes Medicaid the bad guy. Makes you think they're more concerned with demographi…

Medicaid amounts to 65% of the budget deficit and about 60% of medicare. Welfare amounts to another 70%. If we cut the welfare state (i.e., medicare and welfare), we would have a budget surplus. While I agree that medicaid is a politically easier target than medicare, it's not a small program. It's a completely legitimate target of criticism, and eliminating it would significantly improve the federal budget.

That's keeping the payroll taxes that pay for medicaid intact. So you're saying cut the medicaid program and slush the money that pays for it over to the discretionary budget (funded by income tax) to plug the hole there? Maybe put a different line item for that amount, or rejigger the tax itself into income tax? Or cut the medicaid program and kick it all towards medicare to give it a longer lifeline? Honest questions, would love to hear a clarification.

(for the record, I'm keeping it extremely civil in the numbers but find the thrust of this morally disturbing because I think there's a right to basic medical care and you can't deny it only to the poor)

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#118

Post by timr »

xenophanes wrote: post #112
timr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can define "welfare" however you like, but it doesn't change the reality that no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Old people comprise the base of both political parties.

I agree with you that the Republicans aren't going to do much of what I want. I don't agree that all politicians are Democrats or Republicans, or that it's pointless to speak about issues where the parties in power aren't making good proposals.

"I don't agree that all politicians are Democrats or Republicans, or that it's pointless to speak about issues where the parties in power aren't making good proposals."

I didn't suggest that it was. I just think that if we're going to have an intellectually honest discussion about the matter, we have to disregard most of the Republican party rhetoric: the poor are not the problem. The elderly are the problem. As far as I'm concerned, nobody is saying that out loud.

The Democrats are just as guilty of pandering to their base (which is also elderly), but at least they don't hang the poor out to dry in a cynical attempt to distract attention from the real problem.

Re: Thanks For Paying Taxes. Here's A Receipt.

#119

Post by jbooth »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #113
jbooth wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey jbellis, been doing some Cassandra this past week. The original contention was just regarding medicaid -- 290 billion compared to a 3 trillion budget, with a > 1 trillion deficit. Entitlements all together add up to about half of the budget. They're big. But the original point was that nobody wants to touch medicare/SS but everyone makes Medicaid the bad guy. Makes you think they're more concerned with demographi…

Medicaid amounts to 65% of the budget deficit and about 60% of medicare. Welfare amounts to another 70%. If we cut the welfare state (i.e., medicare and welfare), we would have a budget surplus. While I agree that medicaid is a politically easier target than medicare, it's not a small program. It's a completely legitimate target of criticism, and eliminating it would significantly improve the federal budget.

Wait, 65% of the budget deficit? Your own quote has it at 290 billion dollars, that' s approximately 30% of the discretionary budget deficit. Letting alone the fact that it's part of an entirely separate budget.
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