SOCIAL SECURITY:

We hear all these Tea Party nuts and some Republicans talking
about revamping the Social Security system. The village Idiot,
when, he was in office wanted to privatize it. These new ones want to eliminate it altogether. One of our local fellows said the Democrats want to fix it and they want to raise the retirement age to 105. He always exaggerates a little. Many define it as an entitlement. It is the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) an insurance program paid out of wages. Benefits are distributed according to the amount paid in and years worked.

I am going to quote from a former Social Security Administration employee, in regard to the ‘looting’ of Social Security by our previous head honcho’s. We have had outright criminal theft from lower and middle class workers. Social Security is a flat tax, so deductions begin with the first dollar of wages each year. Deductions continue up to a ceiling. In 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president, that ceiling was $29,700. When Reagan left office it was $48,000. Today it is slightly over $100,000. When that ceiling is reached, which happens only to the richest Americans, it’s like receiving a huge tax cut. The exception is Medicare, for which there is no wage ceiling. That deduction is about 1.5 percent plus a matching amount from the employer. Healthcare for our oldest, sickest, neediest citizens costs 3 percent in the public sector. For the younger, healthier segments of society it is 17 percent of GDP.

Under Reagan the percentage of deductions increased by 25 percent. In effect, there was a 55 percent tax increase on lower-and-middle-class workers. That is the largest tax increase in history and the largest redistribution of wealth upward. The mainstream media missed that one too.

The final turn of the knife is the interest paid on the bonds bought by surplus Social Security contributions. Reagan used the bond money to conceal the costs of tax cuts for the wealthy and a massive military buildup to spend the Soviet Union into the Stone Age. Since nothing substantial or revenue-generating was acquired with the funds, that interest plus the principal must be paid back out of current income taxes. Part of a worker’s income taxes goes to replacing his own previous Social Security contributions. (Harold Taggart)

I quote again, this time from William Greider, things missed by many of us over the years, with various finagling going on with all this extra money in our ‘trust’ fund. Targeting Social Security to cover the deficits caused by bailing out Wall Street and fighting two was at once is a great injustice that will not prevail if people awaken to the threat. Both political parties collaborated back in 1983 to produce this huge and regressive tax increase on working people. The media remained silent because; it was done by ‘bipartisan commission’ chaired by Alan Greenspan. Does that sound familiar? Barack Obama and the governing elites in both parties are contemplating a repeat performance.

Ronald Reagan was famously against tax increases of any kind, but his budget director, David Stockman, talked him into supporting this one by assuring the Gipper that if the payroll tax was increased by 25 percent, it would turn people against Social Security and eventually destroy the system. That was okay with the Gipper! Why do wealthy people want to destroy what little ‘pensions’ we receive after a lifetime of paying for it.

I note the similarity between the federal government, states and cities. Anytime there is a designated fund that has money sitting in it, waiting to be distributed for the purpose it is there, who ever has jurisdiction over this good stuff, wants to take it out and put it in their slush fund or petty cash box.