Remove the Cap On Social Security and Means Test It

Social security is screwed up. It's a regressive tax on the poorest people. The rich are exempted from paying it, but they still receive it although they don't need it, and then the government "borrows" it to pay for its wars and military-industrial complex. Then politicians complain that it's going to run out of money. Duhhh!! And it's only supposed to be for people who paid into it but a third of the recipients are disabled people so it's not really just a retirement plan for working people but a plan for people who otherwise would be destitute which is what it should be. Then why are the rich who have investment income and don't need it receiving social seceurity benefits?

They tax employees and employers each 6.2% for social security (real name "Old Age, Survivors and Disability" program) and 1.45% for Medicare for a total of 15.3%. Note that this is a regressive tax in that the tax rate is just the same for those earning $1 a year as it is for those earning $90,000. Income tax, on the other hand, is minimal to non-existant for low wage earners so that the poorest wage earners end up paying more for social security and medicare tax than they do for income tax. In addition, self-employed workers such as myself pay a whopping 15.3% (both employee and employer shares) for social security and medicare. There are several things to do both to increase the fairness of the tax and the fairness of the benefits: 1) Eliminate the cap on income after $90,000  so that the rich will pay on their entire income not just part of it. After all these are the people who can afford to pay more. 2) Means test social security so that people with large investment incomes, passive incomes, unearned incomes or whatever you want to call it receive less or no social security income when they retire. 3) Make the social security and medicare tax progressive so that poor people pay little or nothing and rich people pay more than 7.65% if they're employees and more than 15.3% if they're self-employed. By the way poor self-employed are paying a higher percentage tax for social security and medicare than rich hedge fund managers are paying in income tax, and the rich hedge fund managers, earning upwards of $100 million a year, are only paying social security tax of 6.2% on the first $90,000 of their income, a mere pittance. However, there is no cap on the medicare portion of 1.45%, a step in the right direction! 4) Exempt the first $50,000. from social security and medicare taxes instead of all income greater than $90,000. In other words cap the bottom not the top!

Then they want to privatize it. Talk about compounding stupidity with insanity! First of all let's discuss the purpose of it. Shouldn't it be about providing people in their advanced years and old age with a minimally decent lifestyle regardless of their income from other sources such as life savings? If so, rich people shouldn't be getting it at all, right? But they should pay into it because there's no certainty that they will end up being rich. They could lose all their money and then they should be eligible for it. So means testing would guarantee that people not needing it wouldn't get it and people needing it would and in what amounts. The basic principle should be that the well off should help those less well off, a principle that's anathema to the Republican Party but a basic Christian principle. Jesus said to the rich man, "Sell what you have and give the money to the poor" or words to that effect and "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven", and "Blessed are the poor..." The basic Christian message is that the rich, because they have been extraordinarily fortunate, should help the poor because they have been extraordinarily unfortunate. Now these right wing Republican evangelicals believe the exact opposite disqualifying them from even being Christians in my view. Their philosophy is really social Darwinism - devil take the hindermost.

And Jesus didn't discriminate between the "deserving poor" and the "undeserving poor." So even the good for nothings who have squandered their money on drugs, made bad decisions one after another their entire life and were too lazy to get off their butts still deserve a minimally decent life in their old age or if they become disabled. Jesus never discriminated between deserving and undeserving poor. But right wing Republican evangelicals do. So-called megachurches with incomes in the tens of millions a year might qualify as Christian if they gave the bulk of that to the poor, but, if they don't, they're not Christian even though they call themselves that, in my opinion. Christianity has become a distortion and perversion of Jesus' teachings, but this is nothing new. Medieval popes collected indulgences (money constituents paid to get themselves or their relatives out of purgatory and into heaven), collected art, fought battles and in general lived the lives of secular humanists. Christianity would not even have been a major world religion if the Roman emperor Constantine had not made it the official religion of Rome in 325 AD. Theodosius made it the state religion in 392 AD. After that all other religions were forbidden. So Christianity has been subverted and perverted for 1700 years or more. This is nothing new.

Matthew 25 says: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?' And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.' Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?' He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.' And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Jesus' so-called social gospel is at the heart of his ministry. The rich should help the poor. Social security at its heart represents an even lesser requirement in that, for the most part, it represents the average person paying into a fund to eventually help herself. Paying in according to income should go without saying. In fact the more one earns, the higher percentage one should pay. In other words the social security tax should be progressive. On the other hand the payout should be according to need. Rich people don't need to collect social security. Poor people do. But there is no way of knowing who is going to be rich and who is going to be poor. That's why it's an insurance program. And the refusal of most Christian churches, especially right wing evangelicals, to support government programs to help the poor and disadvantaged is why I'm not a Christian. At least not in their sense.

And then they try to parse it that they don't believe in government programs to help the poor, but they do believe in private or voluntary programs to help the poor. Give me a break! Government is we the people acting collectively. I'm sure the rich right wing Republicans were grateful for government help when their houses were about to burn in the recent California fires. There is an appropriate sphere for government activity and vice versa for private  enterprise. Some things can be done more efficiently and effectively by collective or government action, namely building roads, fire fighting and helping the poor. Private old age insurance would simply screw the elderly in order to generate higher profits for stockholders and higher salaries for CEOs.

Another thing: in order to qualify for social security one must work ten years. There are a lot of people who, for one reason or another, have not worked or have not paid into social security for 10 years. So what's to happen to them in their old age. Out on the street? Shouldn't everybody be entitled to some minimal assistance in their old age? Homelessness is a travesty, but that's what happens to poor people who cannot pay rent in the USA. Many of them are veterans. This is a double travesty. Alcoholics and drug addicts should not be given money but in kind food and housing. Nobody should be out on the street.

Current law exempts anyone from paying social security taxes on salaries more than $90,000. That means that someone earning a million dollars (or a hundred million in terms of hedge fund managers) pays the same social security taxes as someone earning $90,000. This is not right. And it isn't right that the Federal Government is actually using money that has been collected for social security and medicare to fund other parts of the government, namely, war and the military-industrial complex. Then the Bush Administration has no money for children's health insurance, the SCHIP program, that, if entirely funded, would represent about two weeks worth of the money spent on the war in Iraq. There's always money for war and tax reductions for the rich. The poor have to beg for crumbs from the table.

Comments

[Ken Larson]

We have a military veteran friend who was honorably discharged during the Vietnam era. He served in the US Navy while having dual citizenship (Canadian/US).

He was born in Canada and his family moved to New York when he was a child and became dual Canadian and US Citizens.

After discharge my friend worked in the US for over 3 decades, paying US taxes and Social Security. When it came time to retire and apply for his pension he was informed that the US Department of Homeland Security had revoked his US citizenship and did not recognize his Canadian citizenship.

The Social Security Administration will not begin his pension payments until his citizenship issue is resolved. He has been trying to work this matter through the VA, his local representatives in government (congressional level) and directly through the Social Security Office. No one seems to know what to do, who should take action and who has responsibility. The DHS will not reply to his inquiries. Any ideas?

[John Lawrence]

Try the media. People sometimes get immediate results once their plight is publicized.