It's a line item tax with a specific promise, no different than an insurance payment.
Its very different than an insurance payment. Your forced to pay, and than after you pay you have no contractual obligation for performance from the government's end, you just have a program which the government could legally cancel at any time.
Take away the program you take away the tax.
Taking away the program and taking away the tax are separate items, their are not intertwined in such a way as to make one impossible without doing the other.
Even if they where so intertwined (and they certainly are not) one change resulting in the other change doesn't make the two changes the same action.
It is termed discretionary and non-discretionary for a purpose.
Whatever the purpose is, it doesn't change the fact that the "non-discretionary" spending is in fact discretionary, in terms of the normal English definition of the word. Congress has discretion over this spending.
Its non-discretionary, using the term of art involved in government spending, where any payments set by law to automatically renew unless congress changes the law are considered something other than discretionary, but because congress has the power to change laws it does indeed still have discretion over these payments.
re: Every penny spent on social security increases the deficit.
No it doesn't.
Nonsense. Your response is irrational.
re: Also remember in the not to distant future, even if you consider SS taxes and spending to be one insurable thing, that doesn't have parts that can be considered separately, the program as a whole will contribute to the deficit.
That's contrary to the SS hawks who say that once SS has a net outflow, benefits will have to be cut. I'm not positive but I think that is the way the law is written.
They don't automatically get cut under current law until the "trust fund" runs out. Before that happens SS will be increasing the current deficit, assuming no changes are made to the program. The current estimate for the date when that happens is less than 10 years from now (while the "trust fund" won't be considered exhausted until after 2040).
Why don't you support a dedicated tax for the wars? It would certainly increase transparency. It might even result in lower taxes, a favorite of yours.
Wars are temporary. I'd rather have more stability in tax systems instead of constant change.
In general I'm not a fan of dedicated taxes. They add complexity to the tax system, and also encourage responses like yours (that we don't have to consider the spending of the program to be important because its covered by a dedicated tax). Also they reduce government flexibility. Spending the same amount (or an amount according to the same pre-determined formula) year in and year out, may not make sense. One year there may be a need or desire for more spending in one area. Another year, a different area could need the spending. There is one federal government, a tax for each of its programs, or even a tax for quite a few of them, doesn't make a lot of sense IMO. |
