Valentine

Excellent link - alot of information I didn't know and really helps me understand the problem.

If exporting American jobs to China, whose monetary policy and labor practices makes it very attractive to US Corporations, and allowing their goods into the US tax free is helping them, then yes the republicans are helping China.

You can't really mean this - first of all most Americans pay a far greater % of their income than the landed rich. As for the contributions of all those "little people" you so blithly dismiss, go to a National cemetary someday, you won't find the graves of rich people there, what national defense the rich pay for with money, the poor pay in blood. If you think being poor in America is a real deal - Try it - I have. It's not fun and games.

While your dicing up the tax code, come up with a way to be socially responsible. Widows, orphans, disabled, infirmed and physically and mentally disfunctional people need to eat too. How are you going to do that? Perhaps you can put a couple of % aside to provide a decent health care plan, oh yeah and what about all those 150 government programs Bush talked about doing away with, without telling anyone what they were? Real Americans, with real problems that contribute to the real American society need funding. Where does it come from? apparently the last tax cut really came out of the social securilty fund, to the tune of 1.5 trillion! So that "bankrupt" Social Security program actually funded the rich mans tax cut, and fullfilled it's social responsiblity. Not to shabby!

 

Linesuper,

You're bouncing around quite a bit. First of all, I have NEVER blithely dismissed any "little people". You mean midgets? My idea of a fair tax code is where everyone pays the same rate. As it is right now, the wealthy pay a disproportionate amount. Huge. Crazy. In my view WRONG. In the last 20 years that ratio has only gotten more burdensome on the "rich", so I don't know what you're complaining about. And RICH these days means the combined income of a fireman and a teacher!

Most of the social funding you're talking about is mainly funded by the wealthy. Don't worry, the rich will still be there to fund whatever the government comes up with, AS LONG AS THEY AREN'T TAXED OUT OF BEING EFFICIENT TAXPAYERS. I firmly believe in Supply Side Economics, which proved itself under Reagan and is proving itself again with the latest round of tax incentives under Bush.

I know what you're going to say (go ahead), but I respectfully disagree. And when you're done saying it, the burden of all these social programs will still be on a significantly small percentage of the American population.

EDIT--An another thing--those people in the National cemeteries aren't poor people, OR rich people. They're AMERICANS. There is nothing noble about being poor, any more than there is of being rich. It's a bank account. The rest is just "class warfare" rhetoric.

Now pass me my martini and fire up the yacht, mummy...

 

Good thing for you guys that I'm involved in a big audit and I don't have the time to argue. I happen to think privatizing Social Security is one of the worst ideas that has come out of the Bush White House, and there has been no shortage of worst ideas.

I think Rummy's bunker busting bomb ranked right up there too.

 

I'm with you on the Soc. Sec., Rob. Not on the bomb.

 

Rob and Chazmo,

Just out of curiosity, if personal SS savings accounts required that the public invested in government bonds only, thus making the investment as safe as is possible, would you change your minds?

Or does the government DESERVE that money more that those who earned it?

 

That might be acceptable to me, Cordy. Besides the issue of privatization, I think it's borderline insanity to be looking at this issue while trying to keep the tax cuts in place and by having our gov't, simultaneously, be spending us into oblivion.

These are personal opinions, and I don't want to start another political ruckus.

 

I'm with you Chazmo. I still like the tax cuts, would like to see the spending get reigned in and have a Social Security system where participants may carefully invest their own money.

I guess my main point of contention is that I see the government wrangling over money that I feel should be mine in the first place! Safe, yes, definitely safe.

Funny thing is, I don't care about Social Security for myself, and never have. My parents always told me to "pay myself first" in regards to saving money for retirement. They are quite comfortably retired, ten years early, after raising four kids on a single income that never came close to six figures! It's possible.

EDIT--How about this--if the participant's investment ever falls below 2% (or some pre-set level), all funds are transferred to gov't bonds.

 

Ahhhh, Rob, but did this idea come out of the Bush White House?? orrrr is it a shadow leaping out from the past, my friend . . . [note the date]

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 28 1998; Page A03

President Clinton said today he was "open-minded" about proposals to invest Social Security funds in the stock market and other private investments, although he warned that "we also have to ask the hard questions" about the risks involved.

As political momentum builds for some form of "privatization" of Social Security, Clinton signaled his willingness to consider what once would have been an unthinkable and radical remake of the government's main program for the elderly as he seeks to build a national consensus on how to fix its long-term problems.

While not committing to anything, Clinton said private investment of at least some retirement funds could be a more palatable alternative to what he sees as the only other options for bolstering the finances of Social Security -- reducing benefits, raising taxes or shutting down other portions of government. But he added that he wanted to be sure that it would not be so risky that it would throw many retirees back into poverty.

"I don't know what I would do, but I am open to the idea that if we can get a higher rate of return in some fashion than we have been getting in the past, while being fair to everybody and guaranteeing that we'll still be lifting the same percentage of people out of poverty, we ought to be open to those options," Clinton said at a forum on Social Security at the University of New Mexico. "Because I think that's better than raising the payroll tax a lot more. . . . I don't want to cut benefits substantially . . . and I don't want to, you know, close down the National Park Service or stop supporting education."

Clinton sounded more receptive to the idea than has his treasury secretary, Robert E. Rubin, who made a fortune on Wall Street but has been highly skeptical of proposals to invest Social Security funds in private markets that are far more volatile than the government bonds in which they are now invested.

The main question at today's town hall meeting seemed to be not so much whether to privatize Social Security, but how much and in what way. Most fundamentally, should the government decide how to invest the money or should individuals be allowed to choose for themselves?

The think-out-loud forum was the third of its kind on the subject during a year of dialogue leading up to a White House summit on Social Security in December and to be followed by legislation in 1999. Clinton has set his sights on restructuring the six-decade-old New Deal program, which benefits 44 million elderly and disabled Americans, seeing it as one of the last big tasks -- and most important legacies -- of his presidency. Once fall elections are over, the White House believes it will have a short window of opportunity to forge a bipartisan consensus before jockeying for the 2000 presidential election politicizes the atmosphere again.

In a welcome distraction from his looming confrontation with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, Clinton was able to spend a few hours far outside the Beltway engaged in the sort of freewheeling, robust policy discussion he savors.

He sounded genuinely uncertain what course to follow as he explored the complexities with a panel of nine members of Congress and economic experts before an audience of several hundred New Mexicans. In typical Clinton fashion, he threw out plenty of facts and figures and, at one point, summoned an adviser up to the stage to whisper other details in his ear.

Clinton used the opportunity to urge congressional Republicans once again not to use projected budget surpluses for deep tax cuts and to stash it away for Social Security. "In an election year, asking politicians to hold off on a tax cut is almost defying human nature," he said. But "let's deal with first things first."

In thinking about privatization, Clinton acknowledged the obvious appeal of individual security accounts, in which taxpayers could decide how to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes. But he seemed sympathetic to experts who warned that some would lose even as others win. On the other hand, if the government were in charge of investing some Social Security funds on behalf of retirees, he feared that could not be sold to the public.

"How will you ever convince the American people . . . since they always believe the government would mess up a two-car parade?" he asked.

The libertarian Cato Institute argues that allowing the government to invest Social Security funds in private markets would amount to "the socialization of a large portion of the U.S. economy." On the other side of the spectrum, the AFL-CIO criticizes individual security accounts, maintaining that they would deeply cut guaranteed benefits that have been the foundation of Social Security.

When a man asked what he would do if he had to decide right now, Clinton said: "If I answered that question today, it would make it less likely the decision would be made. I'm not dodging this. I honestly don't know what I would do today."

Aides said afterward that Clinton's soliloquys reflected the same sort of discussions he has been having with his advisers behind closed doors. "He is very much struggling with the tough questions that have to be asked under any of the different strategies put forward," said Gene Sperling, head of the White House National Economic Council. "He truly, truly has not made a final decision."

 

Interesting, that, Cordy. I suspect that most of us here are talking about the philosophy of the whole thing, not actual need. I don't see a bunch of S2000 owners pining away for their gov't checks.

Of the "three legged stool" that most of us in Vintage probably retire on (or will retire on) here (savings, investments, and Soc. Security), Soc. Security is probably the least significant. I, like you, expect nothing from Soc. Security.

That said, I don't represent the average American (as evidenced by my slightly extreme political views ). I have also not lived through a depression, though I live my life in such a way that I think I could.

The whole point of a rainy day fund is to weather a rainy day, right Cordy?

 

This is all true, however, in a depression the banks fail and the stock market collapses, real estate prices plummet to nothing. What happens to your rainy day fund then? (Of course, if you've buried your $$ in a safe place you may be okay).